CamCat Books - Summer & Fall 2024 Young Adult Sampler

THESE ARE UNCORRECTED PROOFS. PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL YOU CHECK YOUR COPY AGAINST THE FINISHED BOOK.

Excerpt from Dust Spells © 2024 by Andrea Lynn / YA Historical Fantasy

Excerpt from How to Get Over Your (Best Friend’s) Ex © 2024 by Kristi McManus/ YA Contemporary Romance

Excerpt from A Misfortune of Lake Monsters © 2024 by Nicole M. Wolverton / YA Horror Fiction

Excerpt from Touch of Death © 2024 by Taylor Munsell / YA Dark Fantasy

Excerpt from Hunterlore © 2024 by Dana Claire / YA Paranormal

Excerpt from Inevitable Fate © 2024 by Lindsay K. Bandy / YA Fantasy

All rights reserved. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 1281 E. Magnolia St., #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524. Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. To order, visit: camcatbooks.com/Bookstore-and-Library-Orders.

INTRODUCTION. CamCat Publishing, LLC, opened for business in 2019. Our founder, Sue Arroyo, launched the company for the love of story, those tales that bewitch and dazzle you, grab hold of you and won’t let go. She calls them Books to Live In.

’Cause that’s what she did when growing up. She was a bookworm who lived and breathed stories the way her friends would live and breathe the cool kid on the block or the latest rock star. To her, the characters in her books were the cool kids and rock stars. Who needs awkward teenage parties when you can live epic adventures, find romance, and save the day right there in your mind as you read that favorite book? You know, the one with the creased edges.

Sue is a self-proclaimed entrepreneur. CamCat Publishing is her seventh company. In early 2019, she sold her interest in her most successful business, Trident Technologies, and was able to turn her substantial business skills towards her life-long passion for books.

That’s not a surprise. Growing up, the books Sue read taught her that anything is possible. Anything. And precisely this belief motivated and sustained her as a female entrepreneur pushing that glass ceiling time and again. It was only a matter of time until she’d put her mind and heart and business acumen back to books.

Sue brings a fresh perspective to publishing, a strong desire to establish long-term relationships with both authors and readers, and a passion for a great story.

Therefore, CamCat Publishing is more than a publisher. CamCat Publishing is the sum of its readers and writers . . . and then some. We facilitate and engage in communication between readers and writers because that’s where the magic happens. We involve our authors and readers every step of the way—in the process of choosing the books we publish, the formats in which we offer them, even the way we advertise and publicize them.

But in all this, there’s one thing we never forget. Yes, books are products to sell, but they are something else, too. They are the expression of an author’s creativity and the touchstone for a reader’s imagination. When the two meet, something extraordinary happens. We walk in other people’s shoes and see the world anew.

We appreciate your time and the opportunity to earn that spot on your shelf.

She thought a dust storm was getting in the way of her dreams, but there are storms more deadly than dust.

Ever since the dust storms arrived and turned her world upside down, ambitious Stella Fischer spends her mornings hiding moonshine in laundry stacks for delivery before returning home to help her sisters—Lavinia and Mattie—run their family home turned boarding house, hoping to make enough money to finally escape to Hollywood. She has no time for distractions, especially from Lloyd, the handsome drifter who works as a hired hand at the boarding house.

When the group decides to forage for building materials at an abandoned cider mill, they discover a magical passage that sends them back to the mill in its prime. There, they meet Archie, a man trapped in the realm who can conjure lavish parties and bring back a world of joy and splendor. But Archie isn’t all he seems, and Stella must discover the truth before a storm more deadly than dust destroys her and everyone she loves.

“Lynn weaves historical fiction, fairy tale lore, and simmering romance to craft an electric and harrowing Dust Bowl–era debut . . . With one foot entrenched in the brutal reality of the Great Depression and the other in a fantastical utopia, the novel never sacrifices the urgency of human need while establishing its supernatural charm.” Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Hardcover ISBN 9780744308464| $19.99 | Releases 5/7/2024

Andrea Lynn grew up performing on the stage but now directs behind the scenes as a high school English and Drama teacher. She lives in Winfield, Kansas with her two sons and loves tea, comfy hoodies, Broadway musicals, and of course, books.

DustSpells ANDREA LYNN

DustSpells ANDREA LYNN

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Fort Collins, Colorado 80524

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© 2024 by Andrea Lynn

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 1281 East Magnolia Street, #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744308464

Paperback ISBN 9780744308488

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744308532

eBook ISBN 9780744308518

Audiobook ISBN 9780744308556

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

Interior artwork by Sage Vandenberg, Sylverarts

5 3 1 2 4

To my cheerleader, hero, and forever friend—my sister.

SItella would have thought the sky was a harbinger of the apocalypse if her world hadn’t already ended. The early morning light was sickly yellow and filthy as always. The clear, blue skies and lush green fields of five years ago seemed a dream. It was hard to imagine her home had ever been anything but diseased and covered in dust, though she knew it had. She knew a lot of things she didn’t want to know, like how the entire world could be upended overnight, forever changing not only her life but the lives of millions, and none of them had the power to change it back again. Not ever.

Stella pulled her family’s Chevrolet pickup into Jane’s driveway and put it in park. When she cut the ignition, the engine sighed, as if as tired as she was.

Don’t you die on me now, she thought. You’re the last luxury we have.

A harsh, discordant clanging met her ears when she stepped outside. Jane’s neighbor, a widow named Mrs. Woodrow, had an ungodly number of wind chimes on her already cluttered porch. Stella cursed her silently as she hurried up Jane’s drive. Why have even one wind

chime in a place where the grimy, choking wind never let up? Where dust storms called Black Blizzards rose up and blotted out the sky, raining debris on cars and buildings, tearing through the cracks in the most well-sealed homes, and mutilating the Great Plains as thoroughly as they had mutilated Stella’s life forever.

Stella opened Jane’s back door and let herself in. She closed it behind her, muting the chimes, but then heard the equally irritating sound of a baby’s cry.

“Morning, Stella,” Jane called, rushing into the kitchen with Jasper in her arms. She sat down at the table and opened her blouse, baring her right breast. “Sorry. I meant to feed him before you got here, but he wasn’t hungry.”

“Not a problem,” Stella replied, grateful no writhing parasite depended on her for its sustenance. She had too many people dependent on her as it was. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes,” Jane said as Jasper found her nipple and quieted. “I filled the jars last night.”

Grateful that part was already done, Stella turned and crept down the rickety stairs to Jane’s basement. When she passed the large copper still, she fought the urge to blow it a kiss.

When Jane’s parents died, they left her two blessings: a house with a paid-off mortgage and her father’s old moonshine still. President Roosevelt had repealed prohibition the previous year, but that didn’t matter in Kansas, which had been dry since the last century, and Stella—who almost never prayed—prayed it would stay that way. With liquor outlawed, she and Jane could make fifty cents a pint.

The idea had been Stella’s. Though Jane was four years older, the two of them had been friends since childhood. Jane married right out of high school, but her dirtbag husband abandoned her and Jasper after losing his job last winter. Jane made ends meet by taking in laundry, but when Stella remembered Jane’s father’s old still, she suggested they go into business. Jane brewed the moonshine, and Stella delivered it,

hidden among the laundry. Her heart thumped as she crouched down and picked up the crate. Sixteen beautiful jars. She held the equivalent of eight dollars in her hands. After three months, she and Jane had twelve consistent clients. And the demand was growing. Their only competition was the local drug store where the owner sold malt whiskey smuggled in from Colorado, but most people couldn’t afford it. Jane’s moonshine wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t so expensive it would break the average person. If they had a bigger still, or more people to help, Stella knew they could make their little sideline a real business.

But they didn’t. And Stella knew enough to be grateful for what she did have. She started up the stairs, holding the crate that would bring her the only thing in the world that was hers alone. The thing that, once a week, brought her closer to her dreams.

Jane had finished feeding Jasper by the time Stella finished loading the crate and laundry into her truck. When Stella walked back inside, Jane was burping him over her shoulder.

“Do you ever want to murder Mrs. Woodrow?” Stella asked, closing the door behind her.

Jane laughed. “I hardly notice those wind chimes anymore.”

“How? They’re maddening.”

“She thinks they ward off evil spirits.”

“They’re about to ward off my sanity.”

Jane laughed again, and Stella wiped her brow.

“How are you on ingredients?” Stella asked.

“I have plenty of corn and yeast, but I’m running low on sugar.”

“I’ll pick some up.” She smoothed her hair and checked to make sure the patches she’d sewn beneath the worn spots on her dress were well-concealed. “How do I look?”

Jane smiled, her dimples showing. “Like a sweet eighteen-year-old girl.”

“Wash your mouth out with soap. There is nothing sweet about me.”

Andrea Lynn

The last thing Stella wanted to be was sweet. Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow weren’t sweet. They were vixens wrapped in diamonds and furs who consumed men like champagne. Jane was a sweet girl.

Sweet girls ended up alone with a baby.

“But sweet girls aren’t bootleggers,” Jane countered. “They’ll never suspect.”

“True,” Stella agreed. “I’ll be back with some sweet, sweet dough.”

the sun had barely risen, but the inside of the truck already felt like an oven by the time Stella reached her first stop. She dabbed at her forehead with a handkerchief and checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Just because she lived in a dusty, prairie town didn’t mean she had to look like it. The money she would earn today could buy her powder, blush, mascara, and maybe even a new dress, but it was going straight into her Folger’s can in the attic, so lipstick alone had to do. The crimson stain was perfect, so she stepped out of the truck.

Her first client was a man named Lewis Johnston, who lived with his mother and preferred to take his deliveries at work. Stella always made his stop first because he worked at the train station, and the train-hopping bums who littered the place were mostly asleep in the morning. They camped in the hobo “jungle” in the nearby woods, and some of them liked to whistle and yell at the women who walked by.

That morning, the coast seemed clear as Stella clipped up the drive to the station, holding Lewis’s shirts with the mason jar between the folds. But then she heard shouts, and two men tumbled out from between the trees. The first one fell onto his back, and the second leapt on top of him and punched him square in the face. Stella shrieked and jumped back. With a savage groan, the first man shoved the other man off and scrambled back to his feet. Then, he gripped the man’s shoulder and swung his fist deep into his stomach. The second man

doubled over, and the first seized his head and drove it down into his knee. Blood burst from his nose and splattered the pavement as well as the first man’s pants. He crumpled to the ground, and the first man spat on him.

“You bastards always make the same mistake,” he sneered. “You go for the face.”

“What’s going on here?”

Both men looked in Stella’s direction. She blinked and spun around. A police officer was jogging up the drive. She heard a scuffle and turned back around to see both men bolting toward the trees; the first moving like lightening, and the second stumbling and clutching his stomach.

“That’s right, get out of here,” the cop yelled, and Stella turned back to face him. He nodded and tipped his hat. “You okay, Miss?”

Stella stared at him, suddenly very aware of the mason jar in her arms.

“Oh, yes. They didn’t hurt me. They were fighting each other.”

“Dirty bums,” the cop grumbled. “Why can’t they kill each other out in that jungle, away from decent folks?”

Stella nodded and started back toward the station.

“What’s a young lady like you doing here so early anyway?”

She stopped. After closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she turned back around.

“I’m delivering laundry. To a man who works at the station.”

The cop stepped closer, glancing down at the shirts. “He doesn’t want it delivered to his house?”

He looked back up, but before he met her gaze, his eyes lingered on a few other places. Her crimson lips, her dark curls, the swell of her breasts beneath her dress.

Men.

“I guess not,” Stella said with a laugh. She stepped closer, glad she’d taken the time to dab on a bit of her dwindling reserve of perfume. “You men can be so silly sometimes. I never know what you’re thinking.”

Andrea Lynn

He smiled sheepishly and blushed. “I suppose we can be. Well, go ahead. I’ll make sure no more of these hobos get in your way.”

“Thank you, so much,” Stella said, flashing a smile. Then she turned and walked up the drive, thinking Jean Harlow couldn’t have done any better.

over the next hour, Stella made the rest of her deliveries. Not all were for moonshine; some were just laundry. When she finished, however, she cursed herself. She needed to get more sugar for Jane, but the general store was all the way by the train station. She should have gotten it after her first delivery. Now, she would have to go all the way back and risk arriving home late, running behind on her chores, and disappointing her Aunt Elsa. She sped to the store and used two of the eight dollars she’d made to buy fifty pounds of sugar. Then, she hoisted the two twenty-five-pound sacks over each of her shoulders and trudged out into the heat.

“That’s a mighty amount of sugar.”

She turned around and stifled a gasp. The man who’d beaten up and spit on the other man at the train station was leaning against the wall. He was more of a boy than a man, she now saw. Just a year or two older than she was. His lower lip had been split by the blow he’d taken to the face, and he was picking small chunks from a stale loaf of bread, eating carefully. There was a bakery next door, and Stella guessed the loaf had been thrown out with last night’s trash. Her stomach turned, and she flopped the sacks onto the bed of her truck.

“What’s it to you?”

“Just wondering if you might have the same amount of yeast and corn somewhere.”

She froze and then spun back to face him. He read the guilty look on her face and grinned.

“That’s what I thought.”

She stared at him. Besides the split lip, he had a yellowing bruise beneath one eye and a scar through his other eyebrow. His skin and clothes were filthy, and his hair was a rumpled mess beneath his flat cap. Her gaze slid down to the knee of his pants, stained with the other man’s blood. He followed her gaze, popped a piece of bread into his mouth, and looked back up.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he chewed, “I’d never hit a woman. You could come at me with a knife, and I’d just let you stab me, sugar.”

She flushed, determined not to let him know she was afraid. “How thoughtful. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Hold on.” He stood up from the wall and stepped into the sunlight. “I’m interested in becoming a customer.”

He had a backwoods, southern accent. Maybe Texas or Louisiana. Some desolate, nothing place even dustier than Kansas.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, now. No girl in worn-out out heels is gonna spend that much money on sugar unless she expects some kind of return. And I watched you work that lawman this morning. Saw the fear on your face when he looked at those shirts. Saw the way you turned on the charm to fool him. Pretty impressive.”

Stella’s lips parted. Even the man who’d sold her the sugar hadn’t questioned why she’d bought it. He was just happy to make the sale. This boy talked like a hick, but he was smart. She studied his face. It was pleasant. Beneath the dirt and scars anyway.

But then she remembered his rude remark about her shoes.

“You couldn’t afford it.”

She purposefully raked her eyes over his filthy clothes as she said it. But his grin only curled, and he stepped closer.

“Ain’t you heard, sugar? We got a depression on. People trade and barter for things all the time.”

“Stop calling me that. And you have nothing I want.”

Andrea Lynn

He placed another chunk of bread in his mouth and looked her over. “We’ve only just met.” He lifted his gaze. “You don’t know what I got to offer.”

She flushed again. “You’re disgusting.”

“Disgusting?” He cocked his head to the side. “My, what dirty thoughts you’ve got in that pretty head of yours.”

Feeling a sudden kinship with the man who’d punched him in the face, she spat, “Don’t flatter yourself,” and turned away, tossing her curls.

“I see those patches in your skirt, sugar,” he called. “Don’t pretend you’re better than me.”

“At least I’ve taken a bath this century.”

She didn’t look back when she said it, but she caught sight of his face in her peripheral vision when she opened the door to the truck. His smile was gone. Guilt rose in her throat, but she swallowed it, got in her truck, and drove away.

She sped toward Jane’s house, now certain she would be facing Aunt Elsa’s wrath when she arrived home. There were six dollars in her pocket, three of which were hers, but she found herself too shaken to enjoy their comforting presence.

Because, the boy had been right. Her family was barely hanging on by a thread, and though they weren’t sleeping in hobo jungles and fishing stale bread out of the garbage, that could change at any moment.

Nothing was certain. No one was safe.

Stella parked outside her family’s three-story Victorian house, its former cheerful robin’s egg blue exterior now gray and peeling. She’d taken its luxury for granted until four years ago, because—while she still lived there—it wasn’t her house anymore.

For the first few months following the stock market crash, Stella’s family remained one of the most comfortable in Dodge City. But as fewer and fewer people could afford cars, her father’s dealership suffered, especially when the dust storms arrived to terrorize the farmland. It was 1930 when Stella’s world imploded.

The dealership went bankrupt, her mother died, her father left to search for work in Wichita, her Aunt Elsa turned their home into a boarding house to make ends meet, and Stella and her sisters moved into the attic to help her run it. The creaking of the old walls against the wind was the only sound Stella heard when she crept inside which told her the boarders had already left for work.

Dammit.

She trudged to the kitchen. When she stepped inside, her older sister, Lavinia, spoke without looking up from the dishes.

“Aunt Elsa’s stripping the beds. And yes, she’s mad.”

Stella groaned, pulled an apron from one of the pegs near the door, and joined her at the sink.

“I would have made it back in time, but I was accosted by a vagrant.”

Lavinia’s head shot up, her coffee brown eyes bulging. “What?”

“Well, not exactly accosted,” Stella clarified. “He tried to get me to sell him some moonshine. I did see him beat up another bum by the station earlier, though.”

Lavinia let out a breath and returned to the dishes. “You shouldn’t go down there alone. It isn’t safe.”

“Don’t worry. There was a cop who put a stop to it before anyone got killed.”

Lavinia’s head shot up again, which, this time, had been Stella’s intention.

“It was fine,” Stella assured her, laughing as she took the dripping bowl from her hands and dried it off with a towel. “He didn’t suspect a thing.”

“You take too many risks,” Lavinia scolded her, picking up the next bowl.

And you don’t take enough, Stella thought as she watched her scrape the oatmeal out from the bowl. Lavinia’s hair was as curly as Stella’s, but instead of a black so black it was almost blue, her hair was a vibrant, apple red. She wore it the same way as Stella, but for a different reason.

Stella cut her curls in a chin-length bob because that’s how Myrna Loy wore her hair in Penthouse, but Lavinia did it so she could hide her face more easily.

Over the last three years, Stella had grown used to the jagged scars that covered the left side of Lavinia’s face: a patchwork of puckered, white gashes that clawed their way from beneath her left eye to the

hinge of her jaw, as if she were a porcelain doll whose left side had been smashed and pasted back together by a hasty, trembling hand. Lavinia had always been the most reserved of the Fischer girls, but since receiving the scars, she’d withdrawn even more, rarely leaving the house or looking strangers in the eye.

Stella wasn’t sure how she would have reacted if it had happened to her, which it could have just as easily. Perhaps, she would have withdrawn as well, but she still wished her sister wouldn’t act as if her life was over at twenty-two, resigned to working at the Fischer boarding house the rest of her life, the husband and children she desperately longed for forever out of reach. To Stella, Lavinia was still beautiful, as well as good, loyal, and hardworking. She was nearly as bright as their younger sister, Mattie, and as nurturing and resilient as their mother had been. Not what Stella sometimes suspected she thought she was. Which was worthless.

“Jane says, ‘hello,’” Stella said as Lavinia handed her the next bowl. Jane hadn’t, but she would have if they’d had more time to talk. She and Lavinia were the same age and had been good friends in school. “You should visit her sometime.”

Lavinia looked away. “I know. It’s just hard to find the time. Things being the way they are . . .” She paused, glanced up from the sink, and lowered her voice. “And I think things are even worse than Aunt Elsa is letting on. I saw the water bill in her room this morning. It’s due tomorrow, and I don’t think we have enough. Daddy hasn’t sent money in over a month. And I know Aunt Elsa paid for Mrs. Kelly’s last doctor visit.”

Stella gaped at her. Mrs. Kelly, one of their boarders, was an older woman with lung trouble, exacerbated by the dust. Dust pneumonia, they called it. Mrs. Kelly slept in a gas mask at night, and her room, which used to be Stella’s, always smelled of Vicks VapoRub. Stella pitied the woman, but still wished Aunt Elsa would control her damn bleeding heart.

“You don’t think they’ll turn off our water?” Stella whispered. “The boarders—they’d leave, and we’d—”

“Stella Marie Fischer.”

Stella looked up to see Aunt Elsa hurrying in with a basket of sheets. She plopped it on the floor and slammed her hands on her hips.

“Aunt Elsa, I’m sorry—”

“When I said you could help Jane with her laundry business, you promised it wouldn’t interfere with your duties here. Mattie had to help Lavinia and I make breakfast this morning, and now she’s behind on weeding the garden, and I’m behind on the laundry.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand why Jane needs the laundry delivered anyway,” Aunt Elsa went on. “Why can’t her clients come to her place and pick it up themselves?”

Lavinia met Stella’s gaze and then turned to the sink to hide her face. At least she was aware of how bad she was at concealing things.

“She can charge more money if she delivers,” Stella replied calmly. “But of course, she can’t do it herself. Not with Jasper.”

As she’d expected, mentioning the baby deflated Aunt Elsa’s anger. Her face lit up, and she pressed her hand to her heart. She looked more like her brother, Stella’s father, when she smiled, her emerald green eyes crinkling at the corners.

“How is Jasper? He must be getting so big.”

“He’s got more hair,” Stella said with a smile. “Silvery blond, like Jane’s. Not dirty blond like that low-life Jacob Ryan’s.”

The three of them instantly spat at the mention of Jane’s husband, a habit they’d picked up from Stella’s late grandmother, Aunt Elsa’s mother.

“Well, don’t be late again,” Aunt Elsa said, retrieving the basket of sheets. “Lavinia can finish the dishes. You do the dusting, then beat out the front rug. Oh, and feed the chickens. I don’t think Mattie has done that yet.”

Stella dried her hands on her apron and hung it back up on the wall. She left the kitchen, walked up the stairs to the third floor, wrenched down the attic ladder, and climbed.

The stuffy, cramped space was hers and her sisters’ bedroom now. They shared a single mattress in the middle, but each of them had a section along the wall that was their own. In one corner, Mattie stored her books, their father’s Kodak camera, and a framed picture of their late grandmother. Lavinia’s romance novels, old porcelain doll, and empty jewelry box sat nearby. Stella walked to her own corner, which contained her lipstick, magazine cutouts of her favorite movie stars, and her precious Folger’s can. She took the three dollars from her pocket and slid them reverently inside, gazing up at Greta Garbo like she was the Virgin Mary.

One day soon she would have enough money to get her to Hollywood and out of this dusty town. Her sisters knew of her plan—as well as the sideline she’d created to make it happen—but not her father or Aunt Elsa. It would break their hearts, she knew, but she had no choice. Lavinia had no desire to leave, and Mattie was smart enough to get a scholarship to Kansas University or Kansas State, which both accepted women, but there was nothing for Stella in Kansas. All she had was her looks, and they would get her nothing in Dodge but marriage, children, and an endless cycle of hard work and misery. Here, she would always remain as she was—a poor, powerless girl who could be blown away and forgotten. But in a big city, or up on the silver screen, she could be someone. Someone high above the chaotic struggle of poverty. Someone respected, admired, and in control of her destiny. Money could make her matter, could make people see her as someone worth something, and every dollar she made brought her closer to that dream. She slid off her dress and put on a white, cotton shirt and overalls, trading her heels for a pair of old, leather boots. Running a boarding house was just like running a hotel. Everything had to be cleaned while the tenants were out, and the constant filth in the air made dusting a

daily activity. Stella ran wet rags over the bannisters, stairs, and floors. Then, she made her way through the boarders’ rooms, dusting their shelves. First, her parents’ former room, where Aunt Elsa now slept, then Lavinia’s, where an old nurse and a young hairdresser now lived, Stella’s, where Mrs. Kelly and a railroad telegrapher resided, and Mattie’s, which now housed a hardware store clerk and a musician.

Once Stella finished dusting, she grabbed the bucket of chicken feed and trudged to the back yard. After feeding the squawking creatures, she started back inside the house, but then she caught sight of Mattie, kneeling in the vegetable garden. She was picking tomatoes, but as she plucked them, she was bent down over the vines and bowing her head, murmuring something.

“Are you kidding me?” Stella asked, approaching her younger sister. “Please, tell me you didn’t take that bunk seriously.”

Mattie barely spared her a glance. “You know what puri daj would say if she heard you call it bunk.”

“How does someone who reads the books you read and gets the grades you get still believe in her grandmother’s fairy tales?”

“Stories aren’t just stories,” Mattie replied. “They contain wisdom gleaned by our ancestors over the ages. That’s why they endure.” She looked up at Stella, smirking and tossing her braid back over her shoulder. “If you read a book every now and then, you’d know that.”

“I don’t have time for books. Or for talking to plants to make them grow.”

“You get out what you put in,” Mattie said. “It makes perfect, logical sense. This garden gives because it was given to. Because it was treated with respect. You can’t deny that.”

Of all of them, Mattie took after their late grandmother the most. She was small with Stella’s black hair and Lavinia’s coffee brown eyes. She was only sixteen but had acted like an adult since infancy. Partly because of her intellect—she’d learned to read by the time she was three—but partly because of their grandmother’s insistence she was

“blessed.” Supposedly, she possessed a “second sight,” but Stella knew it was nothing more than superstitious garbage. Mattie hadn’t foreseen the Depression, their mother’s death, Lavinia’s accident, or anything else that mattered.

Still, Mattie did sometimes seem to know what other people were thinking. And the garden she tended was the only one on the block that consistently thrived, as if it were immune to dust and drought.

But Stella wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of agreeing.

“You’re a nut, you know that?”

“Sticks and stones.”

Stella started back toward the house, but then paused. “Did Lavinia tell you about the water bill?”

Mattie looked up, her smirk gone. “Yes.”

“How short do you think we are?”

“Stella, I told you to beat the front rug,” Aunt Elsa called as she and Lavinia emerged with a basket of clean, wet sheets and walked to the clothesline.

“I’ll get it now.”

She walked back inside, sat the chicken feed down, and plodded to the front hall. Before she bent down and rolled up the rug, however, she glanced at the coatrack.

Her father’s nicest hat was still there, as if waiting for him. She stood up, picked it up from the rack, and sniffed it. It smelled like his hair: a hint of sweat and the pomade he’d used, back when they could afford it. An ache spread through her chest, and she placed the hat back on the rack.

Her hand drifted up, grasping the ghost of a necklace that wasn’t there. When she and her sisters played dress-up as children or wanted to look like grown-ups at the square dances, county fairs, and town festivals that had blown away with the rest of their former lives four years ago, their mother would let them each wear a piece of her jewelry. They’d felt like princesses in the gifts their father had given their

mother on their first, fifth, and tenth anniversaries—Lavinia in the pearl earrings that gleamed like her hair, Stella in the emerald necklace that matched her eyes, and Mattie in the opal ring she wore on her thumb so it wouldn’t fall off her tiny fingers.

Perhaps, after the world changed, her mother would have been forced to sell the treasures, but she never had the chance. Stella could smell her father’s scent on his hat every day, and—God willing—in the flesh when he came home, but she would never smell her mother’s lavender-powdered skin again, never hear her chirping laughter, never see her eyes well up with love, never taste her strawberry icebox cake, never touch her silky manicured hand, and she and her sisters would never wear her jewelry again, because it was gone forever, just like her.

Stella blinked back tears and bent down to roll up the rug. There was no use in dwelling on her mother or any part of her old, irretrievable life. Only the future remained, and she would flee this barren wasteland and make her dreams come true or die trying.

She heaved the rug up over her shoulder, grabbed a broom from against the wall, and headed back to the porch. But as she neared the door, she heard a man’s voice.

“You see, I saw the cat on your mailbox.”

Stella groaned. That damned cat. A hobo had drawn it on their mailbox earlier that spring. Apparently, it was a symbol that a kind woman lived in the house, and Aunt Elsa often traded work for food with those in need. Stella admired Aunt Elsa’s kindness but couldn’t help the panicked feeling that rose every time a tramp came by to deplete her family of their limited resources.

“Goodness, honey,” said Aunt Elsa. “What happened to your face?”

Stella stiffened. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t that unlucky. Gripping the rug, she pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch.

He was standing just beyond the faded, white picket fence, his cap in his hands. When the screen door slammed shut behind her, he looked up, and his eyes widened.

Available now, wherever books are sold.

She thought a dust storm was getting in the way of her dreams, but there are storms more deadly than dust.

Ever since the dust storms arrived and turned her world upside down, ambitious Stella Fischer spends her mornings hiding moonshine in laundry stacks for delivery before returning home to help her sisters—Lavinia and Mattie—run their family home turned boarding house, hoping to make enough money to finally escape to Hollywood. She has

Falling in love isn’t complicated . . . unless it’s with your best friend’s ex.

Hannah Taylor has lived in her best friend Braelyn’s shadow all through high school. But when she meets Seth, the handsome and charming newcomer, she wonders if, for once, she might finally be in the spotlight. Until Braelyn and Seth meet, and Brae sweeps his attention away as only she can. Hannah is left to watch the first boy she’s ever truly liked date not only someone else, but her best friend.

When Seth unexpectedly breaks up with Brae months later, Hannah vows to help her friend get over the breakup while secretly trying to move on from Seth once and for all.

Because even though Seth is no longer dating Brae, you never, ever date your best friend’s ex. But getting over Seth is easier said than done when Hannah learns that she was the reason for the breakup, and Seth may like her back.

“Sweet, sexy, and utterly engaging, How to Get Over Your (Best Friend’s) Ex charmed me from the very first page. The more I read the deeper I fell. Swoon!”

—Jennifer Niven, #1 NY Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places

Hardcover ISBN 9780744308570 | $19.99 | Releases 6/11/2024

Kristi McManus is a registered nurse by trade but has been an avid reader and enthusiastic book lover all her life. Her debut novel, Our Vengeful Souls, released in summer 2023 by CamCat Books. When she’s not writing, she enjoys photography and art and counts napping as cardio. She lives in Toronto with her husband.

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Fort Collins, Colorado 80524

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© 2024 by Kristi McManus

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 1281 East Magnolia Street, #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744308570

Paperback ISBN 9780744308587

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744308792

eBook ISBN 9780744308785

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309447

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover and book design by Daniel Cantada

Illustrations by iStockTM Credit: Yugoro

5 3 1 2 4

FOR ALICE

THE RULES

Learn the rules so you know how to break them.

CHAPTER ONE N

The honk of a horn alerted me to her arrival long before my mom called up the stairs.

“Brae’s here!”

I rolled my eyes, frantically shoving the last of my items into my backpack. “I heard her horn, Mom!”

“No need for attitude, Hannah,” she called back, her “mother tone” heavy in her voice.

My only response was another eye roll as I bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen, heading straight for the bowl of fruit on the island. My mothers were buzzing around the kitchen, muttering to each other about who would be late for dinner and who would be responding to the wedding invitation still taped to the fridge. It was all so typical Middle America minus the whole “dad” thing.

Turning to me, my mom lifted her eyes from her phone. “Hannah, I have to stay late at school on Thursday. I’ve opened extended office hours, which means I can’t take your nana to her seniors meeting. Can you take her? I’ll be able to pick her up after work.”

I silently cringed as my mind traced over my calendar, already knowing what this arrangement would force me to miss. Thursday evening was prep sessions with my calculus study group to review before our next test. My stomach roiled at the idea of missing it. Calculus was my worst subject, and I relied on those study sessions to keep my head above water. But bailing on my nana and forcing her to sit in her apartment to watch

Wheel of Fortune instead of going to her club meeting was out of the question. The guilt that simmered in my core burned away any residual inclination to say no. I would just have to make up the study time another way.

“Sure, no problem,” I replied, tapping the change into my phone hurriedly.

Another honk of Brae’s horn sounded, her impatience ringing through.

Plucking a banana from the fruit bowl, I spun on my heels and headed for the door.

“You need more than that for breakfast!” Mom called.

“I’ll get something at school. I’m already late!”

I didn’t wait for a response before I was out the door and down the steps toward Brae’s little, white Jetta. The cool air jolted my senses, Tennessee caught in the clutches of spring as the chill of winter slowly loosened its grip. Sliding into the passenger seat, I threw my bag into the back, launching into apologies before I was even fully seated.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said quickly. “I slept in.”

“As usual,” she teased, raising a perfectly arched brow. A knowing smirk decorated her lips before she reached out her fist. Returning the smile, I met it with my own. We linked our pinkies together and shook our joined hands three times. It had been our official greeting since middle school, made up one afternoon on the playground, and somehow stuck long after things like secret handshakes were considered cool.

“Just shut up and drive.” I laughed as I released her hand, leaning my head against the back of the seat. Taking a deep breath, I glanced at her in all her perfect high school queen glory.

She chattered as we pulled out onto the street, the gentle breeze from the open window playing with her blond hair. Perfect beach waves cascaded in a way that made the style look effortless, and instinctively, I began to pull my dark hair through my fingers. I could never pull off Brae’s effortless beauty, even though I knew the amount of work it actually took to look as she did. Contouring and sprays and flat irons, all to look like you just rolled out of bed. Whereas I really had just rolled out of bed. Granted, she was the first to remind me that the grass wasn’t always

greener, always telling me she wished she had my pale gray eyes because they were “unique.” But in overall comparison to her, I had accepted my aesthetic fate in the “cute girl next door” category long ago.

“So how did the calculus homework go?” Brae asked, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. Her well-manicured fingers stayed wrapped around the steering wheel, easily gliding us through the familiar streets.

The momentary ease that descended in her presence evaporated at the mention of calculus.

“About as well as can be expected,” I said, turning my head back to stare out the window sullenly. “Pretty sure I got every question wrong, but at least I finished it.”

Brae sighed at my self-deprecation. “You’re too hard on yourself. Quit putting yourself down or I’m kicking you out of the car and making you walk.”

I pursed my lips before the corners of my mouth twitched into a grin. I could always count on Brae to find the sliver of positive in my mathematical wallowing. She may have been right, but that didn’t change the fact that I hated every moment of that class, forced into academic purgatory by my moms’ in the belief that it would look good on my college transcripts.

“Yeah, well, I’ll probably bomb the next test, too, since I have to miss the study session on Thursday to take my nana to her seniors club.”

Brae’s face scrunched in distaste. “Why would you miss a study session? Hannah, those sessions are keeping you from drowning in a sea of ‘numerical dismay.’”

“My mom can’t take her anymore, and I didn’t want to say no. It’s just one session,” I explained dismissively, avoiding her judgmental gaze.

“If this was for anyone other than Nana, I would remind you that you need to learn to say ‘no’ more,” she said firmly before pausing.

I turned to give her a glare. “I do say ‘no.’ Sometimes.”

As expected, this earned me a scoff. “No, you don’t. You hate letting people down, even if it means putting yourself second. I mean, you took two extra shifts at Alley Scoops last week for that flake Jennie even though she didn’t give you a reason. You’re too nice sometimes, Hannah.”

“I could say ‘no’ to stuff if I wanted to,” I replied with false assertiveness.

“Prove it,” she challenged with a smirk.

“Not now,” I replied. “It’ll be a sneaky ninja attack you never saw coming.”

“Sure, sure,” she laughed with a shake of her head. “Never saw coming because it’s literally never going to happen.”

It didn’t take long for us to reach the school. Teenage voices riding on the breeze as I waited for the metamorphoses that over took Braelyn every morning. The moment we were out of the car, her smile was in place, waving at people as they called her name like a swarm of paparazzi and adoring fans. Slipping through the front doors, Brae turned on her ‘social butterfly’ persona like she was emerging from a cocoon, colorful, brilliant wings spread for all to admire. All eyes turned to her instinctively, and she knew it. She relished her popularity, treating it like a living being that needed constant attention and maintenance.

It was like we were under a spotlight, but the attention wasn’t on me. I wasn’t the one that people noticed, the one whose name everyone knew. I was that girl’s best friend; the quiet reclusive bookworm to Brae’s glamorous and captivating center of the universe. As opposite as two people could be, and yet neither of us doubted we had found our soul mate in each other at the age of six.

As we turned a corner, a sophomore girl almost collided with us, knocking Brae’s phone and notebook to the ground. The girl stumbled back, eyes wide in fear when she realized exactly who she had run in to, before stooping down to collect Brae’s fallen items.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she stammered, passing the items back to Brae with trembling hands. The girl’s dark eyes were alight with fascination and a hint of caution. Students of East River High knew crossing Braelyn Walker could mean social suicide and went to great lengths to avoid finding themselves on her bad side.

Brae always said popularity was about finding a balance and making sure people understood it. That she could be their best ally or biggest threat—which depended on them. But I suspected that distinction was determined by Brae and her whims.

Brae’s smile appeared genuine, but I knew better. “No problem, things happen,” she said, her blue eyes roaming over the girl’s clothing of a fitted vest top and pleated shirt. “Cute outfit.”

The girl’s mouth fell slack in surprise at the compliment, a pink tinge of happiness coloring her cheeks. “Thank you!”

Her smile widening, Brae waved before steering me around the girl and out of earshot. Leaning closer to me, she whispered, “ugliest outfit ever.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “I thought the top was cute.”

She gasped, appalled. “If I ever catch you wearing something like that, I’ll disown you.”

Stepping up to our side-by-side lockers, we settled in for another school day. Michelle and Erin were already waiting, books in hand, leaning against the neighboring lockers like sentries awaiting their queen. Immediately my eyes fell to Erin’s socks . . . rainbow frogs today. They had decided that their new look for junior year would include eccentric sock choices, and it had become habit that each morning I assessed their choice. Catching my look, they lifted the leg of their pants to show them off.

“Going for bright and playful today,” they smiled, their short, blond pixie cut styled into gentle spikes.

Michelle snorted, a grin toying with her lips. Bright purple eyeshadow swept across her lids, shimmering lightly despite the awful florescent lighting of the school. The cool tone against the warm brown of her skin made her dark eyes pop. “As opposed to grim and threatening like yesterday’s skulls?”

Erin narrowed their eyes. “They had bows on their heads . . . still playful.”

As they began to chat, I immediately started thinking of all the things I would have to rearrange around taking my nana to her meeting. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I didn’t sense the figure slide up behind me until strong hands tickled at my waist. I shrieked, jumping away from his grip, earning myself a deep laugh for my reaction. It was clearly the one he wanted, as he beamed down at me before joining Brae’s side.

“Morning,” Seth said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a playful and stomach-flipping way before pushing his dark hair back from his forehead in a casual gesture. Even in his black T-shirt and jeans, he looked like he had stepped off the cover of one of those stupid romance novels my moms liked to read, and for once, I didn’t snort at the ridiculousness of the idea of someone being this attractive in real life. Tall, dark, and handsome are all painfully stereotypical adjectives, but they all describe Seth Linwood to perfection.

“Quit doing that!” I scolded, the flush of embarrassment coloring my cheeks.

He leaned against the locker beside Brae, gaze still on me, teasing.

“But it’s my favorite form of entertainment,” he stated matter-offactly before turning his attention to Brae.

“Hi!” Brae chimed, hopping up on her toes to kiss his lips. The moment she pulled away, his gaze returned to me, my breath knocking from my lungs like it did any time he looked my way. I grinned before looking away, hiding within the confines of my locker, walking my tightrope of politeness so I didn’t plummet into the depths of romantic longing and despair.

As Brae launched into a tale of the latest gossip, I foolishly allowed myself to steal a glance in Seth’s direction like the masochist I was. His eyes were turned to her, a soft, placating smile on his lips.

That smile was what first captivated me when Seth Linwood entered my life in a flurry of black hair and green eyes, knocking the wind right out of me. Literally, since he knocked me to the floor the first time we met. Colliding into my back as I stopped to pick up the notebook I had dropped, he sent me sprawling onto the floor like hallway road kill. When I sat up, with every intention to cuss the person out and tell them to watch where they were going, all sass and indignation died off on my lips. The horrible school lighting seemed to glow from behind him like a beam straight from the heavens, his silhouette all sharp jawline and broad shoulders, and I swore I could hear angels beginning to sing in the distance. He reached down and plucked me off the tiles with ease, muttering endless apologies for not paying attention, stammering that he was new to school and was a

little distracted. I meekly accepted his apology, captivated by the angles of his face, before escaping to my desk in embarrassment.

The mortification only intensified when he took the seat right next to me, throwing me another megawatt smile just as Mr. Hayes brought the class to order. I spent the next hour stealing glances at him shamelessly, my face flaming every time he would catch me staring. When Mr. Hayes partnered us together for an English assignment on Wuthering Heights, I was equal parts thrilled and horrified.

I had hoped, albeit foolishly, that Seth was a depthless hot guy. The type of guy that made you swoon but was as shallow as a puddle. Unfortunately for me, the more I got to know him during that fateful English class, I came to find he was the opposite. He was smart and insightful. Funny and kind.

I relished our time together; the stolen hours in the library, passing notes during class. We would spend hours on the phone at night, squabbling over the merits of hardheaded heroines and their kindred heroes. More than once, he showed up at Alley Scoops, the ice cream parlor where I work, and would lean on the counter and chat as if time had no meaning.

Once, when we were discussing the less than redeeming qualities of Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship, he asked what qualities would endear a hero to me. The question threw me, a wave of nervousness cascading over me while he stared. I brushed him off, spouting out a dismissive comparison to Catherine’s toxic tendencies in partners, swearing a lifelong vow of spinsterhood. But that night, I let myself fantasize that he was asking not out of humor or bickering, but out of genuine interest in me.

That was when I realized I liked him. I liked him dangerously, because it was clear from that first classroom collision that he was way out of my league. And guys like him didn’t date girls like me.

Guys like him dated girls like Braelyn.

When they first crossed paths a few weeks later as Seth and I walked down the hall, I should have known it was inevitable. As she turned on the charm with a confidence that I could never pull off, asking him question after question like a flirtatious form of the Spanish Inquisition, I fell all too easily into the role of quiet sidekick.

That night on the phone, she grilled me for information on him. Was he seeing anyone? What was he like? Why hadn’t I told her about him? I answered with monotone despondence, praying her interest would wane.

“Would it be okay if I asked him out?” Her words slammed against me, rattling around in my skull as my stomach dropped to my feet. A voice in the back of my mind began screaming, my stomach twisting as I silently shook my head yes.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that she was interested in him. If anything, I should have expected it the moment they met, confirmed the second she started asking me every little detail I knew about him. And yet, her question surprised me, terrified me, frustrated me.

I wanted to tell her yes, that I did mind. That I liked him; liked him so much, too much, and for the first time in my life, I was going to fight for what I wanted.

But I didn’t say that. Because it didn’t matter what I wanted. Not when there was no way my feelings would be reciprocated. Not when it meant that doing so would require me to put my heart on the line and risk rejection. So instead, my heart cracked as I choked out the words.

“Yeah. That’s fine.”

Seth found me the next day, telling me Brae had asked him out. I put on my best mask of excitement, one I had perfected over years of being the sidekick to the most popular girl in school.

“Are you okay with that?” he asked, his dark hair falling into his eyes in a way that made my stomach flip.

My throat ran dry, scorched as the Sahara, but I forced a smile. “Of course!” I squeaked, a little too high pitched to be natural. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Silence descended, each of us staring as if trying to read the other’s mind. After a beat, he grinned and nodded. “Okay. Good. I mean, I wouldn’t want to make things awkward for you.”

I shook my head a little too fast. “Nope, all good. You have my blessing.”

He smiled again, offering me thanks before heading down the hall. The moment he disappeared, my heart sank.

Plucking my biology book from the shelf, I silently chastised myself for longing after someone so unattainable even after all these months. But he was my guilty pleasure that I just couldn’t seem to give up.

The warning bell for first period trilled through the hall, breaking me from my shameless gawking. Closing the door to my locker, I watched as Brae scrambled to collect her things in the few meager moments we had left.

“Babe, are we still on for the movies on Friday?” she asked, fiddling with the books in a disorganized fashion.

“Yeah, we’re good. I just have to help my dad move a couch for my aunt, but I’ll pick you up right after.”

“Okay, well, just please don’t be late,” she whined gently. “We’re meeting up with Matt and Sarah, and Chase might meet us later at The Diner.”

“I won’t be late,” he said firmly, his charming smile still in place to soften the bite before sighing. “Do we have to meet up with everyone? I mean, we could always spend time just you and me.”

Brae’s lips pulled down into a pout, looking to Seth. “But we already have the plans, and you like Matt.”

Seth shrugged in a noncommittal fashion before letting the topic slide. Of course Brae was oblivious to his gentle irritation as she closed her locker and slipped her arm through his. Turning to me, she tilted her head as if only then remembering my presence.

“Do you wanna come with us?” she asked, her face taking on a pitying expression. “We’re seeing that new movie you wanted to see.”

“No, that’s okay.”

“You should come! Seth, you don’t mind, do you?” she asked, looking up to him with her big blue eyes. “It would be like a threesome.” She laughed innocently with a suggestive raise of her eyebrow.

“Get a room,” Erin muttered, rolling their eyes playfully at Brae’s display.

My stomach clenched as my eyes flickered to Seth, who was thankfully smiling down at her and oblivious to my embarrassment at my best friend’s lack of filter.

“Yeah, that’s fine—” Seth started before I cut him off.

“No, seriously, it’s okay,” I said, hugging my books to my chest. “You guys go have fun.”

Brae sighed, her full lips pouting. “We really need to get you a guy,” she said, clinging on to Seth. “Then we could double date, and you could have someone to hang out with like we do. It would be great!” Her eyes widened as her excitement rose. “Oh my God, we should totally set you up!” Turning to Seth, she bounced on her toes. “Babe, who do we know that we can set Hannah up with?”

Michelle scoffed gently. “Yeah, because the dating pool at East River High is full of solid options?” Glancing to Seth, she waved a hand toward him. “Present company excluded, of course.”

Seth turned his concerned eyes to me, assessing my reaction quietly. I was pretty sure my wide eyes, flushed cheeks, and overall sense of mortification spoke volumes.

“I’m sure Hannah is perfectly capable of finding her own dates, Brae,” he finally responded after accurately determining my humiliation.

“Oh, come on,” she whined. “If that were true, she would have someone by now.”

Her words prickled like a bee sting, but my features remained unaffected.

“Okay, well,” I called, giving them a dismissive wave as I broke myself away from the little net of tragic singledom that Brae had thrown over me. “I’m going to take my single, dateless ass to class.”

“Aw, Hannah, that’s not what I meant,” Brae sighed, finally clueing in. “Don’t be mad—”

“I’m not mad,” I said, throwing her a smile. “I just don’t want to be late again.”

Reaching up onto her toes, she placed a quick kiss on Seth’s lips before turning to me with a regretful pout. “Well, I’m still sorry.”

“And it’s still fine,” I assured her, plastering on a reassuring smile just as Seth stepped up to my side like he did every morning. And just like every morning, a little thrill of excitement sang in my system in his proximity.

“Ready for English?” he asked, tucking his books under his arm as he looked down at me with a heart-stalling smile. Again, a flush of

embarrassment crept up the back of my neck as I remembered where my thoughts had taken me only moments before, rendering my voice mute.

Reaching his arm out in a gentlemanly gesture, he guided me down the hall toward our first period English class. As if fate hadn’t dealt me enough of a tragic hand last term, it had somehow brought Seth and I back together in English yet again. Only this time, the stakes were even higher: paired up together the first week to rewrite a classic into a modern-day novella, which would be worth thirty percent of our final grade and due at the end of the semester. The ill-fated love of Romeo and Juliet took on a whole new meaning as we deconstructed it side by side.

The moment we were away from my friends, Seth launched into conversation.

“My dad and I went hiking at Hidden Lake this weekend. You were right, it’s a great spot.”

I smiled, my eyes remaining downcast. “Told ya.”

I could hear the faint sound of his light chuckle over the din of chatter around us. A comfortable silence fell between us as we navigated the halls.

“I’m sorry for what Brae said,” he said, his deep voice gaining my attention. “You know, single-shaming you.”

I snorted a mortified laugh, looking away quickly as we stepped into the English room. It was meant to sound dismissive, like it didn’t bother me at all, but came out more like a choke of panic to be discussing my tragic love life with Seth Linwood—the object of my desire and completely-offlimits dreamboat.

“It’s fine,” I assured him with the same well-practiced control I reserved for Brae. “She didn’t mean it like that. Besides, it’s not like it isn’t true.”

Seth frowned as he slid into the chair next to mine, setting his books on the desk.

“Why don’t you date?” he asked curiously, turning his long, lean body toward me. The movement was intoxicating in its simplicity, and made my head swim. “I mean, not to be a jerk, but I just realized you haven’t dated anyone since I’ve known you.”

I shrugged, my eyes locked on the unicorn-adorned pencil in my hand. A gift from Brae.

“I told you. I took a vow of spinsterhood. And one does not just break such a vow.”

“Seriously,” he chastised. “Spinsterhood and toxic Heathcliff attractions aside.”

I pursed my lips, knowing I was not going to be able to avoid answering. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t lie through my teeth.

“I just haven’t met anyone I like that way, I guess. Plus, it’s hard to compete when your best friend is Brae Walker.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not a competition, Hannah.”

Now it was my turn to emit an indignant scoff. “Isn’t everything in high school a competition, though? Sports, grades, popularity? Interest from guys when the girl next to you is nothing short of high school royalty?”

The moment I stopped speaking, I chided myself for my honesty. It sounded like I was whining, when in reality, I was just being honest. Everything in high school was a competition, even if it shouldn’t be.

Seth was silent for a moment. Pushing my better judgment aside, I looked his way to find him watching me with a frown.

“They’re stupid,” he said firmly, turning to face forward again.

“Who?”

“The boys who aren’t asking you out. They’re morons. You’re awesome, Hannah. You’re like Beth in Little Women. Quiet, with a good heart, and everyone loves you. You deserve to be happy.”

I couldn’t suppress a little snicker as I shook my head. “Sure, compare me to a dead girl.”

“Technically, she’s a fictional dead girl,” he corrected firmly. “But it’s still true. And you shouldn’t compare yourself to Brae.”

He didn’t look my way again as the teacher called the class to order, successfully ending our conversation. It left me in a myriad of emotions, ranging from guilt, to confliction, to a tiny swell of happiness to know that Seth thought anyone who didn’t ask me out was a moron. Granted, he had never asked me out either when he had been free and able to do so.

Not that I gave him any sign that I would welcome such an offer, but still.

For the next hour, I all-too-easily fell down the fantasy rabbit hole of what if

What if I had had the courage to tell Seth how I felt all those months ago? Or tell Brae how I felt back then, knowing full well she wouldn’t have dated him if she knew. The biggest reason I was watching from the sidelines as the first boy to ever make me feel this way belonged to someone else was me. And because of that choice, he was forever off limits. Because no matter what happened back then, and regardless of what happened in the future, Seth Linwood would always be tied to Braelyn Walker. And you never ever dated your best friend’s ex.

Available now, wherever books are sold.

Hannah Taylor has lived in her best friend Braelyn’s shadow all through high school. But when she meets Seth, the handsome and charming newcomer, she wonders if, for once, she might finally be in the spotlight. Until Braelyn and Seth meet, and Brae sweeps his attention away as only she can. Hannah is left to watch the first boy she’s ever truly liked date not only someone else but her best friend.

When Seth unexpectedly breaks up with Brae months later, Hannah vows to help her friend get over the breakup while secretly trying to move on from Seth once and for all. Because even though Seth is no longer dating Brae, you never, ever date your best friend’s ex. But getting over Seth is easier said than done when Hannah learns that she was the reason for the breakup, and Seth may like her back.

Cover Design by Daniel Cantada

Cover Artwork by iStock Credit: Yugoro

When legends bite back.

Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college—but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it. That includes Troy Ramirez, who has been covertly in love with Lemon for years, afraid to ruin their friendship by confessing his feelings. When a very real, and very hungry monster is discovered in the lake, secrets must fall by the wayside. Determined to stop the monster, Lemon and her best friends are the only thing standing between Devil’s Elbow and the monster out for blood.

“This unnerving journey into the safeguarded secrets and deep depths of a small town called Devil’s Elbow is a frightful delight. Nicole Wolverton reveals a fearless imagination and a playful appreciation of the terrifying in her pulse-pounding debut.” —Nova Ren Suma, New York Times bestselling author of The Walls Around Us

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309584 | $19.99 | Releases 7/2/2024

Nicole M. Wolverton is the author of the adult psychological thriller The Trajectory of Dreams (2013) and served as the editor of Bodies Full of Burning (2021), an anthology of short horror fiction through the lens of menopause. She is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer of short stories and writes creative nonfiction and essays as well. Her work has been published in over forty anthologies, magazines, and podcasts.

A MISFORTUNE OF LAKE MONSTERS

A Young Adult Horror Novel

NICOLE M. WOLVERTON

A MISFORTUNE OF LAKE MONSTERS

A Young Adult Horror Novel

NICOLE M. WOLVERTON

A MISFORTUNE OF LAKE MONSTERS

A MISFORTUNE OF LAKE MONSTERS

A

Young Adult Horror Novel

A Young Adult Horror Novel

NICOLE M. WOLVERTON

NICOLE M. WOLVERTON

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Fort Collins, Colorado 80524

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© 2024 by Nicole M. Wolverton

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 1281 East Magnolia Street, #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309584

Paperback ISBN 9780744309607

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309645

eBook ISBN 9780744309621

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309669

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

Interior artwork by Alenaohneva, David Goh, Ninochka, Marek Trawczynski

5 3 1 2 4

“M

onsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: ‘Here are our monsters,’ without immediately turning the monsters into pets.”

—Jacques Derrida, Some Statements and Truisms about Neologisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other small Seismisms, The States of Theory.

LEMON

If it weren’t for the dry suit strangling me from toes to tonsils, hypothermia would have set in thirty minutes ago—and graduating from high school with all my digits intact is a record I want to hold on to. Inside the Old Lucy costume, my toes and fingers scrunch. The good news is that I can feel them. Being the gooey human center of a neoprene and latex lake monster burrito isn’t my favorite way to spend a Monday night. And here’s more good news: things are about to wrap up—a cluster of shadowy figures is suddenly flitting like moths around the hazy lights on the dock about two hundred meters away.

That this is what’s passing for good news is full-on crap, but whatever—it’s go-time. A sudden flash of heat in my veins chases away the April-cold Lake Lokakoma water, and I clear my throat. It’s sandpapered near raw from the oxygen I’ve been sucking from the tank strapped to my back. “Now, Lemon, it hain’t no different than takin’ a breath on

land,” is what Pappap’s told me on more than one occasion. He keeps saying I’ll get used to it—like the longer I’m the supersecret Old Lucy impersonator, it’ll all magically feel normal one day.

Nothing about faking a lake monster is normal and never will be. Not swimming around in a monster costume on a dreary night. Not hiding behind the boulders at Peter’s Island to keep watch for people on the dock. Not constantly lying to my best friends. And definitely not being trapped in Devil’s Elbow for the rest of my natural life.

The crisp air fills my lungs, even though it feels like it has to claw over broken glass to do so. Best get used to it now instead of wallowing in my misery. Hey, I want to wallow, but I can wallow when I’m dead . . . or at least after this impersonation is done. I check the silver dive watch strapped over the iridescent scales on my wrist and calculate how much time is left on my oxygen tank. Every thought in my head pares down until all I can do is visualize the Old Lucy impersonation routine, exactly as Pappap taught me. Nothing too showy. Just give them a taste, just a glimpse. And let them hear Old Lucy roar.

Light drizzle pings off the surface of the water and smacks my chin. I duck back behind the boulder, clear my throat again, and rip out the high-pitched ululation of an Old Lucy cry, complete with a long, eerie note that hangs over the lake as heavy as mist.

No wonder the oxygen doesn’t hurt Pappap’s throat—he probably doesn’t have any pain receptors in there anymore after a lifetime of ululating.

A girl’s voice is the first thing that comes sliding across the water. “Did you hear that?”

And then a guy’s whoop. “Old Lucy’s out there! Can you see her? Get some video.”

“My phone’s not picking up anything—it’s dark as shit tonight.”

I fit the regulator back into my mouth, swallow around the stale air from the tank, and adjust my goggles before clicking the face mask back into place. The new moon makes for a sky that might as well be

a black hole, sucking all of Devil’s Elbow and the towns surrounding it into nothingness. Low clouds obscure the stars, and there’s a thick gloom hanging just above the water—all the better for that extra bit of mystery. It’s the perfect night to stage an Old Lucy appearance, whether I like it or not.

The urge to think and I don’t is hard to resist.

The words swim through my brain in big flaming black letters. Even the sweet almond perfume of forsythias blooming on Peter’s Island temporarily masking the stink of sweat-embedded monster suit latex isn’t enough to cheer me out of this funk.

The cold water closes over me as I sink into the lake. I’ve practiced the sighting route so many times that even my seemingly perma-depressed mood isn’t a distraction. I’ve dreamed this route, woken up gliding through my blankets like a water bug. Ten yards clear of the island, five yards toward the dock for the tail flick. My body corkscrews up through the water like a drill, and I jackknife to thrust my legs and hips and the latex tail upward.

For a brief moment, the absence of water resistance is glorious, and I’m something close to triumphant.

Then it’s off to the bottom of the lake, to the submerged wreck of a car that’s been there for as long as I can remember. The rough texture of the old rope that Pappap installed as a guide is evident even through my monster mitts. Hand over hand, I pull myself along the line and shoot up to the surface again, just out of sight of the dock. There are a few spots like that between here and our boathouse—places where I can splash around, make some noise, and hope the people on the dock can hear it, even if they can’t see me.

The satisfied feeling is fading now, though I’ve successfully just pulled off my first solo Old Lucy impersonation. The neoprene strangles tighter. Being trapped inside a generations-old, disgustingly smelly, fake monster costume is just the perfect metaphor for the dumpster fire of my new life.

The bridge of my nose prickles. I dive toward the bed of the lake and practice fake smiling around the regulator for the benefit of my grandparents while swimming for home. I am a grateful granddaughter. I am a grateful granddaughter. I am a grateful . . .

2 LEMON

Rain breaks overnight, leaving the sky bright and clear, with a blue so blue it hurts my eyes. The sun bullies its way into the cafeteria of Devil’s! Elbow! High!—that’s the way it sounds when the cheerleaders scream it at pep rallies—and shines up the scuffed linoleum floor. A beam of light gleams across the cheery banner hung against one wall that reads “Home of the Lake Monsters” with a cute purple Old Lucy illustration smiling from one edge.

Tuesday’s mystery meat glistens on Pepto-pink lunch trays around the room. The banana Troy left in my locker this morning looks safer by comparison, but the combination of blue, pink, and yellow is too cheerful for my mood. I set the banana on the fake wood table, close my eyes, and brood. I’m getting really great at it.

Pappap would tell me I’m being a baby, to soak up all the Old Lucy buzz and count it as a job well done. The talk in homeroom and the

hallways this morning was Did you hear and Well, he said. That is a good thing. Danetta Harvey’s about ten feet away right now, recounting last night’s Old Lucy sighting for a rapt soccer team audience, which isn’t doing much for my sulking capabilities—but maybe it means I won’t have to do another impersonation too soon.

“I never really believed in Old Lucy until now.” Her voice is highpitched, melodramatic. “But Billy shined a flashlight out on the water and . . .”

She’s even wearing a glittery Old Lucy T-shirt from one of the tourist shops on Front Street. She probably ran out this morning before school and bought it for this very occasion; it looks new. Maybe I should be proud of my contributions to Devil’s Elbow—Danetta’s family owns a pizza shop downtown called Monster Pepperoni that bakes up a special Old Lucy–shaped pie during the summer for tourists, and I can name at least two or three dozen more kids in this cafeteria whose parents make their living on summer visitors drawn to town for monster hunts at the lake. The monster I now impersonate. It’s not like there’s any other reason to visit this town. I know deep down that I’m doing a good thing, but I’d give anything for my biggest worry to be something more mundane and boring than keeping the economy of an entire town afloat. I mean, I’m seventeen, not forty-seven.

The table jolts, and I jolt with it. Skeet Jenkins slouches on the bench next to me, sitting backward, one elbow propped perilously close to my water. His eyes are aimed at what little cleavage I have in my V-neck. My stomach crawls like a wriggling pile of slimy worms have been let loose, squirming and poking.

Someone nearby stage whispers, “Oh my god—look.”

“So, Ziegler.” Skeet leers at me, all dimples and crooked teeth, topped with a lewd wink. It seems like my annual encounter with Skeet has arrived—he makes it a point to harass everyone with boobs at least once each school year. What I am not expecting are his next words: “Prom’s coming up.”

My guts go on turbo-spin. It’s exacerbated by a strategic rip in his jeans at the thigh that shows off an overabundance of black curly leg hair. I have nothing against body hair, but showing it off so carefully seems so . . . intentionally icky. Everything about him feels like it’s designed to cause a reaction. The sleazy way he feels entitled to hit on everyone regularly, the clear outline of a condom that’s always visible in the back pocket of his too-tight jeans, the rifle rack on his truck, the retch-inducing smell of too much musky body spray. I’m reacting, all right: it’s called nausea. He’s the small-town cliché in every television show . . . on hairy legs.

This is not what I had in mind when wishing for more mundane worries.

“Prom, right. How could I forget.” It’s becoming painfully obvious that half the people in the cafeteria have abandoned their Old Lucy talk and are now watching the impending train wreck that’s playing out at my lunch table. Why couldn’t he just stick to making some disgusting comment about my body and then running off, like he usually does? The weight of all those eyes on me—including Skeet’s—is almost as strangling as the Old Lucy costume.

“What do you think?” He licks his thin, chapped lips. “Me and you at the prom? I’m getting my pickup detailed and everything. I’ll get one of my cousins to buy us a few cases of beer. We can party in the woods after. It’ll be a good time.” He runs the tip of his finger up my arm. “I’ll even pack a tent for us to camp overnight.”

The worms move from stomach to skin, leaving gross goo trails where Skeet touches me. A polite if not tense smile is spreading over my face, and I hope like anything he doesn’t mistake it for interest of any sort. He studies me, smutty-eyed and calculating.

Danetta whispers to her admirers and smirks in my direction.

I adjust my shirt over my chest and flinch away, trying not to be too obvious about it. “Uh, Skeet, wow. I . . . don’t . . . I mean, thank you for asking. That’s so sweet of you.” My brain trips over itself. Anything I say

is going to make him mad—and convincing people to forget I exist is my only goal in life these days. Confrontation gives me a raging headache. “It’s just that . . . I’m already going with someone else. But really, I’m so flattered.”

The lie hangs between us like a balloon blown too full of air. The urge to cram the silence with awkward chatter is loud in my head, and so is my silent, horrified screaming. Even though I’ve just said no, he has Expectation face.

Maybe he thinks I’ll bail on my hypothetical date and go with him—or maybe he knows I’ve made zero plans for prom and will admit it if he smolders at me long enough. The pained smile feels perma-affixed to my face.

Skeet’s mouth tugs into a scowl, and a small measure of fear hisses over my skin when I think again of his gun rack and that time I saw him punch someone in the lunchroom for stepping on his cowboy boots.

“Bitch. I don’t want to go with you anyway.” He jerks toward me, threatening, then stalks away, heels banging on the linoleum sharp as gunshots.

I slam my head into my hands as soon as my muscles loosen enough to move. I’ve had my fill of drama today. The thought of giving up, ditching school, and trying again tomorrow is attractive—if I was the kind of girl who did that kind of thing. I’m too afraid of Grammy and Pappap finding out. I suppose I should be grateful to Skeet on some level—Old Lucy has been out-of-mind for the entire four minutes of our delightful encounter.

Maybe if I concentrate hard enough I really will just— poof—dissolve into a hazy cloud of discontented smoke.

“Taking a nap, Lem?” Darrin Flanagan climbs onto the bench across the long, rectangle-shaped table ten minutes later and grins when I look up. “Or were you knocked unconscious by the glory of the cafeteria?” He tosses his brown bag down, and it spins like a top.

My anxiety calms to a dull twitch.

“Both, simultaneously,” I say, just before Troy Ramirez slides into the spot beside Darrin and plunks down his own pink tray of shiny meat. His shoulders are suddenly taking up a lot more space than they used to. Sitting next to him, Darrin looks like a mouse next to a moose. To be fair, Darrin is the opposite in almost every way, with a light brown mop of unruly curls and a soft, round face that makes him look like a sixth grader.

I reach over and squeeze both their wrists for a few seconds. It’s a relief to have company that doesn’t actively make me uncomfortable for having skin.

Troy smiles at me, brown eyes sweet and untroubled as usual. “Hey, didn’t see you this morning. Everything okay? I left you a ban—”

“Yeah, thanks.” The banana still sits exactly where I left it. “You saved me from having to eat”—I gesture to his own tray of mystery meat—“whatever that is.”

Troy laughs and gently nudges my arm. “Here to serve. I know you’re opposed to Turkey Loaf Tuesday. Hey, heard about the Old Lucy sighting last night? Classic.”

The polite, frozen expression crawls back onto my face.

“Oh, fuck Old Lucy,” Darrin says. “Can’t you see our Lemon is bored of that noise? She wants to discuss the mysteries of the universe beyond the limits of Devil’s Elbow. She’s all about the unending enigma of spontaneous combustion. False flag conspiracies and crisis actors.” He cocks his head and looks across the cafeteria—everyone has gone back to minding their own business—before glancing back at me. The corner of his mouth quivers. “Or maybe she wants to talk about Skeet Jenkins.”

Troy frowns at Darrin for a split second.

“Okay, someone has had one too many coffees today.” I point my banana at Darrin for emphasis, hoping he won’t see that my hand is shaking a little. Drop it, I think in his direction. Drop it. “That’ll stunt your growth, you know.”

Nicole M. Wolverton

“Not all of us can be giants.”

Troy’s mouth loosens. He rubs a hand over his short dark hair. “Heard Billy Voorhees was out at the lake last night. Said Old Lucy came right up to him and ate one of those fruit leather snacks out of his hand.”

Before I can attempt another subject change, Darrin lets out a cackling laugh and bangs the table once with his hand. “Was he drunk? Because it sounds like he was drunk. More to the point, are you drunk? You believe him?”

It’s apparently too much to ask to exist in a space where Skeet and Old Lucy don’t exist, even for fifteen minutes. My sigh is barely audible next to the cafeteria din.

“Sure, I believe him. Why not?” Troy bites into his apple, chews, and swallows. “Look—not saying I believe there’s a lake monster for real, but I don’t not believe, either. Never seen it with my own eyes is all. Maybe it’s a law enforcement thing—only believe what you can see and touch, but never rule out the possible. My dad says it all the time. Says it’s something he learned from your grandfather when my dad worked under him in the police station, Lemon.”

“That sounds like Pappap,” I say, though inside my head is filled with sour laughter. Pappap puts on a good show in public, but he flatly refuses to accept there are things beyond his knowledge—and he’s certain he knows everything. If people thought that way, Ziegler’s Ferry Tours would go out of business.

No one would believe that Old Lucy could exist, so why bother looking for her on a ferry tour of the lake? For one brief moment, I fantasize about jumping up from the table and shrieking, It’s all fake! Old Lucy is a hoax! This whole town is a lie!

See and touch that.

Darrin smirks. “So, Troy—you’re telling me that you’re agnostic about the existence of lake monsters because your dad absorbed the wisdom of sheriffing and receptiveness from Ike Ziegler?” He throws

a napkin at Troy. “Something doesn’t seem right there. Ike is a bit too authoritarian to be open to the existence of cryptids.” He turns to me. “Come on—tell me the truth—does Ike come home and make fun of people for believing in our sainted lake monster?”

My brain repeats back one of Pappap’s rules for the job: promote the hype—all day, every day. I hope I don’t look like I want to throw up all over the place when I say, “We live with Old Lucy, plus with the ferry tour company, he knows she’s out there in the water, and I guess . . . I guess I do, too.”

Troy and Darrin both gape.

“Screw Billy Voorhees—are you drunk?” Darrin says. “In the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve been sure Old Lucy is fake.”

“Not true,” I say, fighting the bitter edge surfacing in my voice. “I’ve just never cared one way or another.”

“And now you do?” Troy says. “You have a sighting we don’t know about?”

I shrug. Grammy likes to say, Encourage the talk, say you believe, but never admit to seeing Old Lucy yourself. It gets you noticed, and that’s the last thing you want.

And that don’t do you no good, Pappap always chimes in. You just blend into the woodwork, easy as you please.

Here I am . . . blending like a champ.

“Ever heard the theory that the Loch Ness monster is really an elephant?” Darrin says. “You know I’m not an Old Lucy believer,” he says. “I like conspiracy theories—I just don’t believe them. So, maybe it’s an elephant.”

The struggle to keep my face neutral is real. Darrin doesn’t buy into the conspiracy theories he’s always going on about? Since when? “That is so random,” I say. “Are you suggesting one of my neighbors has a pet elephant that regularly bathes in the lake?”

Darrin steals my banana and peels the first strip. “Elephants can live to be sixty years old or some shit.”

“Yeah, but Old Lucy sightings go way back further than the mid1900s,” Troy says. “And elephants? That might be weirder than your conspiracy theory about the Denver airport.”

“You believe in Old Lucy but not that American Nazi pukes could be using an airport as their base of operations?” Darrin finishes peeling the banana and eats it in two bites. “And hey, it’s a conspiracy theory, not my personal belief. Nazis and anyone Nazi-adjacent suck, no matter where they operate.”

“Fair enough. I’ll give you that one because Nazis do, indeed, suck,” I say. “If the elephant thing is true, though, it would make me the most unobservant person on the planet.”

Darrin grins. “Don’t sell yourself short—you’ve got that hot girl thing going for you.”

“Hey!” I kick him under the table, but he’s not Skeet: he doesn’t say it like he’s picturing me naked.

Troy taps Darrin in the arm with his fist. “Don’t talk about Lemon like that.”

Darrin rubs the spot. “Fine. Lem, you’re the smartest goddamn girl I know, a feminist icon for the ages. And you just happen to be a blond Amazon.”

I kick him again for good measure, but my heart isn’t in it. Prom and graduation are only a monthish away, and Darrin and Troy will leave me behind not long after that. I’ll miss Troy’s directness and the way he’s always looking out for me. Darrin’s jokes. Troy’s willingness to just be a nice guy.

Even Darrin’s casual manly crap and constant trucker mouth and his wild theories about secret societies, although I’ll never let on that I find that stuff endearing—at least on him.

“Just because I’m taller than you is no reason to be sarcastic,” I say, poker-faced.

“Everyone is taller than me,” Darrin says. “But I make up for it with my incredible charm and sex appeal.”

“That has to do with elephants and lake monsters how?” Troy says, attempting a menacing growl that just comes off as too funny to be scary.

“Quit encouraging him.” I smile to mask the fact that I want to bottle the two of them up to have their friendship with me always. There’s no way to bright-side this because there’s nothing good about losing my best friends while simultaneously having my future ripped away. I know I should be thinking about it like I’ve had a future handed to me on a silver platter instead, but it’s hard to be excited when it’s not the one I want.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with anything.” Darrin shrugs. “I’m just trying to make you forget I referred to Lemon as a hot girl. It’s true, of course, but you get so testy about it. It’s a good thing you ruled out following in your dad’s and Ike’s footsteps as a career move—you clearly do not have the temperament for being a cop. Or maybe you do. I’ve seen all those police brutality cell phone videos all over the place.”

Troy rabbit-punches Darrin’s arm again. We’re all being a little loose with the violence today. I know why I’m all salty and tense, but what’s Troy’s excuse?

He opens his mouth to say something more, but the overhead lights flicker—once, twice, a pause, then another blink. The cafeteria is dead silent for a millisecond before it explodes into a din of nervous tittering and jokes.

Darrin says, “Well, shit, Lemon—you didn’t have to go—” He breaks off and winces, clapping his hands over his ears. “What’s up with the air pressure?”

A vibration like the buzzing of bees zings through the bottom of my feet.

Troy’s face goes confused. “Whoa, feel that?”

“What is that?” As the last word leaves my mouth, the floor lurches. A grinding scrape tears the air. My head jerks toward the commotion, but then it’s everywhere. The overhead lights swing. A voice—a boy—

screams, and the cafeteria turns into a tinderbox of noise, louder than before. The table shudders, and Darrin’s brown bag goes flying.

Troy is on his feet. He clamps onto my arm and hauls me up. My feet hit the rolling ground. It’s total chaos. Everyone running. Shoving. Bumping into me. My legs are too liquidy to work properly.

Darrin clamors over the table like he’s in a movie, sliding over the hood of a car. Troy’s tray upends and claps some first-year girl in the chest. She doesn’t seem to notice as she bulldozes her way past, mystery meat juice dripping off her. There’s a sound louder than the yelling, something that rumbles and cracks. The lights still swing. Troy wraps his arms around me and lifts me, backing us both out of the crowd.

“What are you doing?” We are nose-to-nose, and it occurs to me to worry about my breath.

“Earthquake.” His breath smells like apple. The fire alarm suddenly blares.

Earthquake?

Something cold and solid presses into my back, and Troy smooshes against me from the front. The sound of my ribs creak in my ears. I suck in my first real breath. My feet dangle. Troy has me pinned to a doorframe. I yell out to Darrin, but the rumbling and the alarm and the screaming drown out everything but what’s happening inside my head.

The pressure against me lessens. I slide down the doorframe. My legs are still like jelly, but the ground is solid enough now. Troy hovers over me. Where once everything was on fast-forward, now it’s all slow motion. People running by. Danetta puking into a garbage can. Nothing seems real at all.

Darrin appears at my shoulder. His voice shakes when he says, “You okay?”

“I think Troy tried to suffocate me.” I touch an achy spot on my ribs.

“Sorry, Lemon.” Troy shrugs, but his face doesn’t look anywhere near casual. He has High Alert face. “You were frozen, so I moved you. The doorway seemed like the best place.”

Darrin sags, hands on knees. “Wow. That was . . .”

“We should go,” Troy says. “Aftershocks, y’know?”

In that moment, everything sharpens. “We just had an earthquake.”

Darrin laughs once, incredulous. “Welcome to the party, Lem. Where the hell you been?” He jerks his head toward the corridor. “Let’s get moving, hey?”

Troy herds me down the crowded hall like a sheep dog, rushing after Darrin. “Seriously—you’re fine?” Troy says in my ear. He’s close enough that the apples on his breath are still evident. His body heat clings to me, even as the cold of the doorframe lingers in my bones.

The worms are back in my stomach, but for a much different reason. “Yeah. That was unexpected.” I glance around—it’s all still intact: the Old Lucy mural, the lockers painted purple to match. “The whole building should be coming down, but it looks like nothing happened. Weird.”

The doors ahead of us are open, but there’s a bottleneck of bodies. No one seems to have any sense of urgency about getting anywhere. I clutch the back of Darrin’s T-shirt and say to Troy, “How did you know what to do? To get in the doorway? It’s not like we have earthquake drills.”

“When would we have time?” Darrin calls over his shoulder. “Between active shooter drills and standardized tests, the school year is chock full of excitement to keep us from learning to think for ourselves.”

The top of Principal Showalter’s bald head is visible through the door. He shouts, “Everybody out. Come on, get moving.”

Even with the principal partially blocking the exit, it’s not too long until we pop through the front door of the school. The color of the sky has intensified, and it’s oddly alarming—still a little too surreal for my liking. I eye the ground in case a sinkhole decides to open beneath our feet. Between officially taking over as the Old Lucy impersonator last night, Skeet asking me to prom, and now this, anything feels possible in the very worst way.

Darrin leads us across the lot until we reach Troy’s massive pukegreen Buick.

Troy leans against the car and plays with this phone. “What are we supposed to do? Assure my mom the school’s still standing—and what then?”

Darrin says, “Watch the teachers lose their shit, I guess. I get it— earthquakes aren’t exactly an everyday thing in Pennsylvania.”

“That’s not entirely true.” I will myself to relax—that is, until glowing neon of the Lucy-licious Fluff and Fold across the street blasts into my sight line. There’s just no getting away from my destiny in this town.

“Grammy told me once that there are usually one or two earthquakes each month around here, but they’re tiny. There were even a few really small ones that registered on the seismograph at the lake the other day.”

“There’s a seismograph at the lake?” Darrin says.

“It’s part of the equipment the police department keeps to monitor the water quality and rainfall amounts and stuff like that,” I say. “Pappap keeps a few instruments out there, too—he says it helps him understand lake conditions.”

Troy nods. “Dad was just talking about those little earthquakes. Some guy at the station said it could be fracking related. Started happening a dozen years back—the fracking quakes, that is. That’s why Dad was rambling about earthquake drills. It’s why I knew what to do when it hit today. Anyway, bunch of fracking operations are set up maybe thirty minutes from here.”

“Figures.” Darrin’s nose wrinkles. “Old people, right? How much sense does it make to destroy the planet just so they can make more money? I’d like not to die before I graduate from college.”

I catch sight of Skeet’s pickup truck parked a few rows away. He’s behind the wheel, glaring in my direction. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and part of me wants to ignore it in case it’s a text from him. The last thing I need is a continuation of his you’re a bitch crap.

“Should text my dad, I guess,” Troy says.

Right. And I should check on Grammy and Pappap. I fish my phone out, about to speed-dial one of them, but the text that buzzed is from Grammy: Are you okay, sweetie? Where are you?

Me: I’m good, in parking lot at school. You and Pappap okay?

We’re fine, cleaning the boats today. No real damage from the quake.

“Grandparents?” Troy says.

I nod, and Darrin laughs. “Speaking of old people . . .”

“It’s Grammy, making sure I’m not dead. They’re over at the ferry office.”

Because of course they are. Tourist season is coming, and they’ve got be ready to reap the benefits of my impersonations.

Everything to do with Old Lucy is turning me into someone I don’t like—I can barely even give my own grandmother the benefit of the doubt. I know she loves me, but from here on out I’ll never be sure if she’s actually worried about me, or if she’s just concerned I’ll die and Pappap will have to go back to impersonating the lake monster and ruin their retirement plans. It’s not like my Uncle Bobby, Aunt Nan, or my cousin are going to vote themselves to be the new heirs to the questionable Ziegler fortune, and Grammy knows it. They don’t live in Devil’s Elbow. They don’t care about what happens here or about the family legacy. I don’t care much about it, either—but saying no to my grandfather is impossible. My mouth tightens.

“Did you get a text from Ike?” Darrin says.

“Oh, please,” I say. “Pappap barely knows how to use a cell phone beyond making a simple phone call. It’s like magic to him.” Right on cue, my phone rings.

“Hey, Pappap.” I make a face at Darrin. He nudges Troy away.

“Well, hain’t that a kick in the pants.” Pappap’s voice is rough as the ever-present stubble on his wrinkly cheeks. “All that shaking, and now it’s like it ain’t never happened. The lake’s as calm as a baby and smooth as glass. Earthquakes are funny things.”

“I told Grammy I’m fine.”

“I know—she’s standing right here. But you can’t find no fault in me checking.” He chuckles. “Are them kids at your school talking about Old Lucy?”

I suppress yet another sigh. Of course he doesn’t care about how I’m doing—he only cares about how the family legacy is holding up. “Yeah, I heard some things this morning.”

“Good. The earthquake hain’t going to help none, though, I tell you what. We might have to schedule another sighting a few weeks from now.”

My heart instantly fills with sand. “Do we have to?”

“There won’t be no need if the earthquake talk dies down pretty quick. We’ll see. If there hain’t been a fresh Old Lucy sighting to get people talking, folks might go to one of them water parks in the Poconos instead of coming here. Best see if you can’t get Old Lucy back atop everyone’s minds.”

“Sure, Pappap. Okay.”

I say bye, hoping my voice doesn’t sound too miserable. Maybe I can start a new rumor about an Old Lucy sighting. Maybe that’ll be enough. Anything to avoid strapping on the Old Lucy latex and neoprene so soon. At least Skeet’s truck is gone when I turn around. I’ll take good news anywhere I can find it.

Available now, wherever books are sold.

WHENLEGENDSBITEBACK.

Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college—but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it. That includes Troy Ramirez, who has been covertly in love with Lemon for years, afraid to ruin their friendship by confessing his feelings. When a very real, and very hungry monster is discovered in the lake, secrets must fall by the wayside. Determined to stop the monster, Lemon and her best friends are the only thing standing between Devil’s Elbow and the monster out for blood.

Cover Design: Maryann Appel

Illustration: Tithi Luadthong

Death is permanent. Even if it hasn’t happened yet.

With just a touch, George experiences a person's future death. High school is hard enough, but sixteen-year-old death witch Georgiana “George” Colburn can’t seem to catch a break. Even Jen’s ghost, the recently deceased popular girl who ignored George in life, won’t leave her alone. George is convinced her life can’t get any worse. That is until she bumps into the new student and experiences his death at her hand.

When a coven mate, Trixie, offers to help her with her magic, George finds herself with a new friend and crush, but she knows even if she found the courage to ask her out, a relationship is impossible: she’d never be able to touch her. With the help of her friends, George must face her fears and learn to embrace her powers to unlock the secrets of her magic before blood stains her hands.

“Set against the backdrop of the quaint, coven-run town of Windrop, where the dead don’t leave,Taylor Munsell’s debut novel Touch of Death is a delightfully witchy coming-of-age story. With magic, sweet romance and a mystical murder spree, I was up late reading.”

—Kendare Blake, #1 NYT bestselling author of Three Dark Crowns

Hardcover ISBN 9780744310238 | $19.99 | Releases 9/17/2024

Taylor Munsell is a fantasy and YA author currently reading, writing, and hoarding books. She has a background in publishing, funeral directing, teaching, and content creation. She has a passion for telling magical stories about prickly girls. Words are her lifeblood.

When she's not writing, you can find Taylor eating a snack, reading a book, or trying to go on an adventure. She lives and writes in the mountains of North Carolina.

TAYLOR MUNSELL

TOUCH of DEATH

TOUCH of DEATH

TAYLOR MUNSELL

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Fort Collins, Colorado 80524

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© 2024 by Taylor Munsell

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 1281 East Magnolia Street, #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744310238

Paperback ISBN 9780744310245

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744310290

eBook ISBN 9780744310252

Audiobook ISBN 9780744310306

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

Interior artwork by ArtVector, Lazarev, Lyubov Ovsyannikova 5 3 1 2

FOR CHARLOTTE & OLIVIA

ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

CHAPTER

1BLOOD DOESN’T SCARE ME. That’s not the reason for the tremor in my hands.

There are things far worse than a little blood.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” I grumble, kicking the toe of my boot against the gym floor.

“I’m not making you do anything.” Felix bumps me with his broad shoulder. “I simply suggested you should go through the blood drive. It’s expected.”

My snort earns a narrowing of his brown eyes. Expected. I don’t know how a blood drive honors the memory of a student, but he’s right: every person in the school is “doing their part.”

“But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” I reach up to fiddle with the peridot crystal pendant at my neck. If nothing else, maybe it’ll actually shield my emotions today. “I should have asked Gran to make me a draft to calm my nerves.”

Though, I’m not sure even Gran, the most powerful witch in the coven, could make a draft strong enough for that. She wouldn’t try if she knew I was only doing this to say I need to go to bed earlier to recover and get out of the coven meeting tonight.

Felix lowers his voice. “We can leave.”

I shake my head. “We’ve already been seen. Time to be a big girl.” And we’re next. The line of students waiting to donate blood still stretches behind us, but any second now Felix and I will be whisked away to one of the portable beds now lining the school gymnasium.

“Your call.” Felix shrugs. “Anyway, no harm can really come from it.”

Not true.

I glance around the gym. Every light is on, but they aren’t really bright enough. The stench of stale sweat hangs in the air, mingling with the too-strong smell of antiseptic.

A shudder courses through me as I try, and fail, not to think about what that antiseptic smell is covering up. Blood might not scare me, but it’s still not my favorite.

At least there are no unwelcome guests so far. Although they aren’t visible, I feel them pressing in on me, trying to make me see them. I tug on the hem of my glove, more out of habit than anything. They’re one of my favorite pairs: the black lace is almost as smooth as the silk that lines them. If I have to wear gloves, might as well make a statement.

“They’ll be wearing gloves, too,” Felix says gently. “They won’t touch you.”

Nodding, I hope I seem more confident than I feel.

“Felix Davies,” another junior girl calls. Her sleek black ponytail falls to her mid-back. She’s dressed in scrubs, so she must be in the school’s nursing program. Her dark eyes move to find Felix grinning at her. Color floods her beige skin.

Felix has that effect on most girls—and boys—to be honest. Between his warm brown skin, easy smile, and dark, inviting eyes, he can charm anyone.

Except me. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps. He’s basically the big brother I never had.

“Come with me,” she stammers. Poor girl.

“Georgiana Colburn?” an unfamiliar voice calls.

“George,” I say reflexively. Felix glances back and gives me a thumbs up.

The nurse and owner of the unfamiliar voice smiles at me, her eyes only momentarily snagging on my blue hair.

“Right this way, young lady,” the nurse says as she escorts me down the row of beds. I glance back, trying to catch Felix’s eyes, but he’s busy charming his student nurse while she gets him settled.

I follow my nurse to an empty bed, palms slick with sweat inside my gloves as I sit down. The crinkling of the paper lining the bed as I adjust makes me cringe.

As the nurse works, my mind races, trying to think of any spell or incantation, anything that would make this situation less daunting, but I come up with nothing. For being a witch in a coven so connected to death, an event with so much blood should send power coursing through me, especially considering my specific gifts. But I got nothing. Maybe I should actually pay attention in my magic lessons.

I hear the snap of gloves, a tear, and then the smell of alcohol burns my nose. In a few swift movements, she is tapping on my wrapped arm, looking for a vein. The nurse notices the way my whole body tenses as she touches me.

“Take a deep breath,” she says, probably thinking I’m nervous of the needle, not that her skin might touch mine and I’ll wind up experiencing her death. Even with her gloves on, I don’t feel safe. A hiss escapes my lips as the needle slides in.

“Good girl.” She adjusts the blood bag before pulling off her gloves and tossing them in one of the bins along the center of the room. The blood drains from my face at the sight of her bare skin. “You’re all set. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”

She heads to another student down the row, leaving me alone. After almost a lifetime of dealing with it, I’ve gotten quite good at avoiding touching. Gloves, covered skin, even the attitude is all another way to keep me safe.

Still, the occasional slip happens. Someone will pat my cheek or catch my arm, their fingers grazing the skin between my glove and sleeve, and I’ll slip into experiencing their death. Just the thought makes me shudder.

The bed to my left is empty, but the poor kid in the bed to my right looks like he’s trying to scoot as far away from me as possible. My attitude might work a little too well in keeping people away.

It still hurts my feelings, even after all these years. I wish I could tell my classmates that I don’t want to get near them either. The encounter is always worse for me than it is for them.

My eyes find Felix, and he flashes me a grin, just as cool as ever. His poor student nurse is still standing by him, black ponytail bouncing as she talks.

I scan the rest of the gym. My gaze catches on a girl with dark skin and tight curls. She smiles and gives a little wave. I stare back at her as my brain tries to process if she meant the wave for me.

It’s possible. She’s a witch, too, and with Gran as the coven’s Supreme, she’d know who I am. She’s new, only moving here a couple of weeks ago for the beginning of the school year. I rack my brain trying to remember why she moved here. Something about a divorce, I think. Intercoven marriages can be tricky, especially when the spouses have two different magics. Almost every witch ends up in the coven that’s not ours. Death witches make other witches kind of jumpy. Ridiculous, but true.

I realize I’ve let my mind wander too long, but the boy on her left catches her attention before I can decide to wave back.

Closing my eyes, I lean against the headrest, trying not to think of ways to kill Felix for talking me into this. I know he meant well, but still. It’s not like he has to worry about the risks. Ghosts don’t appear to him if he lets his guard down. My breathing and the squeaking of shoes on the gym floor fill my ears. A heavy feeling settles on me, raising the hairs on my arms. Someone’s watching me.

“Why hasn’t anyone come to see me yet?” an all-too-familiar voice asks from beside me.

Shit.

Guess the crystal isn’t going to work today. With the way my magic has been acting up as my ascension closes in, I shouldn’t be surprised. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, but I can still feel her beside me.

Of all the gifts the Goddess could bless us with, being a medium isn’t a common one among magic wielders, but it’s not unheard of, especially among death witches. Gran would always spew something about embracing the cycle of life and how their presence is an honor. But she never had a ghost appear behind her in the mirror when she was brushing her teeth. When I was little, it would terrify me when the occasional ghost showed up. As I got older, it became more of a nuisance than anything else.

“Hey, are you okay? You look a little pale. Well, paler than usual.”

I’m sure she does, too. Maybe if I don’t respond, she’ll go away.

“Isn’t your name Georgia or something?”

Guess not. “Georgiana—but my friends call me George.” Well, friend.

“Whatever. Why did that nurse help you first? I was here before you.”

I peel one eye open. Sure enough, Jen’s lounging on the empty bed, bubblegum-pink bicycle helmet in her lap. Her complexion is

more translucent than golden now, but there’s no mistaking her. I’ve put a lot of time into trying to decide what would make this less weird. At least they never look gruesome, just a slightly less corporeal version of themselves.

I think I would have died the first time I saw one if they were the horrific-looking ghosts from horror movies. I can’t think of a way ghosts could be normal, but it always creeps me out when they’re carrying the items they died with. If there’s a reason some do and some don’t, I’m not aware of it. Though, I’ve never been inclined to ask one.

“I don’t know, Jen. Maybe she likes me better.” Not the nicest thing to say.

But Jen wasn’t the nicest either.

She eyes me, sucking her teeth before speaking. “You know my name?”

“Obviously.”

Everyone knows her name. If they didn’t before, they sure do by now. In the three weeks since the accident, she’s become more popular than ever. This is the Jennifer Monroe Memorial Blood Drive after all.

She preens and shifts on the bed.

“Makes sense.” She looks at me again. “You look a little sweaty.”

Brushing my damp bangs from my forehead, I mumble a yes before glancing back at Felix. The grin is gone, and concern now creases his brow.

“I’m fine,” I mouth to him. He nods, looking unconvinced. I can’t blame him. While I’ve been dealing with this most of my life, he’s only seen me interact a few times. Normally, I can ignore them. Unless I’m under duress, like when blood is flowing from a needle in my arm into a bag.

Jen follows my gaze. “You’re always hanging around him. Are you two, like, a thing?”

I snort, forgetting I’m trying not to look like I’m talking to myself. The boy on the bed to my right scoots a little farther away. “No.”

“Dumb question. You aren’t his type.” She scoffs, dragging her eyes from my blue hair to my Doc Martens.

“I’m sure that’s it,” I say through gritted teeth. I have to remind myself that she’s been through a lot.

Jen pulls her long blond hair over her shoulder before leaning back, the paper remaining smooth beneath her. “I hope they hurry up soon. I’m supposed to meet Jason tonight.”

I don’t respond. I’d prefer to avoid being the one to tell her she won’t be meeting Jason tonight. Or any other night.

“Hey,” Jen says as Cathy comes to check my bag.

“You okay, sweetie?” Cathy asks as I cringe. I nod. “Hmm. Well, you should be done soon. Yell if you need anything.” She smiles before turning away.

“Um, I need something!” Jen calls after her. Cathy doesn’t turn around. “Unbelievable! She just completely ignored me.”

As much as I don’t want to be the one to tell her what’s happening, I can never bear when they’re in this state of confusion.

“Jen?” Might as well get this over with. “What’s in your lap?”

Jen watches the nurse another moment before looking at the helmet. “My bike helmet.” She runs a finger along the large crack on the side. “How’d this get here?” she breathes.

Don’t make me be the one to say it.

“Weird. I don’t know why I have this. I don’t ride my bike to school.”

Only to her boyfriend’s house at night. She’s still looking at her helmet, confusion crinkling her perfect skin.

I hate this part. I hate when they don’t know. I hate having to be the one to tell them.

“Hey Jen.” I dig into my back pocket for the flyer and awkwardly unfold it with one hand. “Can you come here and read this for me?”

“Can you not read?” she snarks, not looking at me.

I take a deep breath and remind myself, again, that she’s been through a lot. “I’m a little woozy. Please?” The last word grates along my nerves.

“Fine.” She hops up from the bed. Her hands grip her helmet as she comes up beside me.

“Why do you have a flyer with my picture on it?” Her pert nose wrinkles in disgust.

“Just read the paper.” I sigh, bracing myself.

So many emotions flit across her beautiful face: confusion, anger, grief, before settling on denial. Her emotions clang through me.

“This can’t be for me.” She glances around the gymnasium at our classmates gathered there.

“It is.”

Hazel eyes lift to meet mine. It’s not lost on me that I may be the only one to ever look into those eyes again.

“But why am I here then?” Her words are barely a whisper. I tense as realization dawns and her gaze drops to the cracked helmet in her hand.

Her jaw slackens as her wave of despair crashes into me.

And then she’s gone, unable to hold on to her form in her anguish. It’s always the same.

She didn’t even know my name before today, but a tear still rolls down my cheek. And then Felix is interrupting his bubbly young nurse, trying to get up and come to me. He knows something’s wrong now. I won’t be able to convince him otherwise.

My eyes find them, the others lurking on the outskirts of the gym. The ones who have been with me since the beginning and the ones who have joined along the way. I feel them—their grief and rage and despair—as they linger in my peripherals. They’re a part of me.

I wonder if Jen will join them.

AS SOON AS THE NURSE pulls the needle from my arm, I´m off the bed and leaving the blood drive, completely ignoring her as she scolds me about needing to take it easy.

Felix is hot on my heels as I try to put distance between myself and the gym. Maybe if I walk fast enough, the ghosts will stay in there for now. Not likely, but a girl can dream.

“What happened?” Felix calls after me.

“Nothing.” I don’t look back as I stomp down the hallway.

“Did someone touch you?”

“No.” Thank the Goddess for that. “I told you: it was nothing.”

“It didn’t look like nothing.” Felix’s long legs help him easily keep up with me. The hallways are empty since most students are in the courtyard before school starts or at the blood drive.

“What do you know? You couldn’t see her.” I mean it like a joke, but my words sound brittle even to my ears.

“George, the comedian.” Felix grabs my elbow to stop me. He lets go when I wince and nods at my arm, at the bandage under my sleeve. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“It’s fine.”

I take a deep breath through my nose.

“It was Jen,” I say with a whoosh.

“Monroe?”

“One and the same.”

“Is she still here?” Felix glances around.

“No, she couldn’t hold on to her form.” I don’t tell him that there are still spirits lurking on the outskirts of my vision. My hope that they would stay in the gym was obviously in vain.

His lips pull into a thin line. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you do that.”

“You didn’t force me to do it. Just suggested. Besides, you didn’t know that would happen.”

“You told me it was a possibility.”

“I did.”

“I should have listened.”

“Yes, you should have.” There’s jest in my voice this time, but the pain doesn’t leave Felix’s face. “Oh, come on, Felix. I’m used to it.”

He flinches. I can’t blame him. No sixteen-year-old should be used to seeing ghosts. Even ones who are death witches.

“Buy you an ice cream after practice?” he asks.

“Trying to assuage your guilt with bribes?”

“Maybe.” His shoulder lifts in a lopsided shrug.

“I accept.”

“Hoped you would. Don’t be late.” Felix is already turning down the hall. Most of us would use giving blood as a reason to skip class. Felix, on the other hand, insisted we do it before school so we didn’t miss anything. At least Gran won’t suspect anything when I tell her I need to rest instead of going to the coven meeting.

“I never am,” I say, watching him go before heading to my first class of the day.

THE AP HISTORY classroom is humming with excitement as I slide into my desk. The desk next to me is still empty, the other witch from my coven—I remember now her name is Trixie—still at the blood drive. I feel a twinge of guilt that she’s been sitting next to me for a week, and today was the first time I noticed her. I’d like to say it’s because she never made an effort, but that’s not exactly true either. My eyes flick to the empty desk as I try to convince myself I’m not a total asshole for ignoring someone less than three feet away from me.

My phone vibrates, stirring me from my self-loathing.

FELIX: im starving. J

GEORGE: big baby.

GEORGE: you should have eaten. class hasn’t even started.

I can picture him sitting in his AP Physics class, acting like the world is ending because he hasn’t had second breakfast yet.

The final bell rings. Mr. Whitaker’s desk is empty; the sub is probably running late for the day.

I’m watching the three bubbles as Felix types when a voice startles me. I jump and the phone almost slips from my gloved fingers.

“You look like you didn’t sleep at all.” Jen leans forward, propping her chin in her hands. She’s sitting in Trixie’s empty desk.

The seat in front of me is empty, but Steve, the senior two seats up, turns around to see what startled me. When he sees nothing, he rolls his eyes before turning around. I refuse to engage. No one else can see her, so no one will know I’m ignoring her.

“I know you can hear me.” Jen leans over to wave a hand in front of my face. “Yoo-hoo, earth to George.”

I don’t know why I continue wearing this peridot. It obviously has no impact on the ghosts of high school girls.

“Go away.” It comes out as a mumbled growl since I’m trying not to move my lips.

“Huh?” Steve turns around again.

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” I blurt.

“Of course you didn’t.” He turns back around.

The seconds tick by, the class growing more anxious as no one enters the room.

“Where’s the old guy who’s usually in here?” Jen asks.

I shoot her a glare from the corner of my eye. She doesn’t notice. Of course, Jen wouldn’t know who Mr. Whitaker is. She wasn’t in his class, so he wasn’t important enough to be on her radar.

I’m just texting Felix to ask what happens if the teacher doesn’t show, when the door opens.

“Oh, he’s—” Jen starts. I pop my head up, glancing at the now empty seat. She’s gone. That was abrupt.

I turn to see what she was looking at.

My mouth drops open.

A young man strolls in. His shiny black hair is swept to one side of his inviting face. Thick, black-rimmed glasses are perched on his nose and a tan satchel is tucked under his arm.

The room is instantly silent at his presence.

He glances at the still empty desk before turning to look at us, a smile spreading across his face. I swear I hear sighs throughout the classroom.

He’s almost painfully handsome.

“Holy shit,” Krista mutters behind me. She was Jen’s best friend and is one of the most popular girls in school. If even she is starstruck, he must be as good looking as I think he is.

“Is Mr. Whitaker not here?” he asks, voice smooth. No one answers him.

His smile doesn’t falter as he spots the only open desk in the room: the one in front of me. He walks toward it with confidence, sliding into the seat as every set of eyes in the room watches him.

If he’s thrown off by the amount of attention he’s getting, he doesn’t let on. He’s only saved from the stares of the class by the opening of the door and the second shock for the day.

Mr. Whitaker shuffles into the room, not glancing at the class until he plops into the chair behind his desk.

“I thought he died,” Krista mumbles behind me.

I would have too if I didn’t see the people who have actually died on the reg.

Mr. Whitaker lets out a hacking cough that hurts my chest just listening to it before he finally looks up. He scans the room, his gaze landing on the now occupied seat in front of me.

“Class, we have a new addition. Some of you may remember my grandson, Silas. He’ll be staying with me this school year.”

“There’s no way,” Krista says. She leans forward to whisper at me. Normally she ignores my existence, but apparently she can’t keep her revelation to herself. “That’s Snotty Silas. I don’t know what he did, but he got hot.”

I squint at the back of his head as if that would help me see any kind of resemblance to the skinny kid with oversized glasses and a constantly running nose to the boy who even I can admit is attractive, now sitting in front of me. He moved with his parents when we were all still in elementary school, never to be heard from again. Until now, it seems.

Mr. Whitaker soldiers on, oblivious to the whispers spreading like wildfire in the room. “I was out retrieving him from his parents’ house in Seattle. But now I am back. Where did you leave off?”

No one else is paying attention, too busy trying to check out Silas without openly staring. Mr. Whitaker spreads the papers around on his desk, still waiting for an answer. I shift in my seat

before clearing my throat. Might as well be the scapegoat. “The Civil War.”

Mr. Whitaker harrumphs. I guess that’s his version of thank you. “As George said, let’s open our textbooks to page forty-seven.”

That’s it. No other introduction, no other explanation as to his absence or the arrival of his grandson. He just dives into the lesson as the rest of us sit and blink at him.

My phone buzzes.

FELIX: Whitaker is back? A new student? What is today?!?

GEORGE: a thursday.

GEORGE: wait, how do you know? you’re not even in this class.

Three dots pop up as I wait for his response. I look up to find Mr. Whitaker writing on the whiteboard. Silas watches him. Although his hair is still in that I just woke up like this style, the hairline on the back of his neck is cut with precision.

Gooseflesh prickles my skin.

FELIX: Krista texted me. apparently he’s beautiful.

Turning around, I see Krista has her phone in her hand and is typing away furiously.

“What?” she mouths as I turn back around.

GEORGE: news spreads fast.

FELIX: we’ve got to stay entertained somehow.

FELIX: what’s his story? where’s he from? why’s he here?

I flick my eyes to Mr. Whitaker, but he’s just reading from the textbook page. His voice is so calm and soothing, I’m sure the class would be falling asleep if it weren’t for the excitement of a new student.

Trixie’s arrival already got the town whispering. In a small town, one new student is an event. Two, especially in the same grade, is unheard of.

Silas looks fully alert, like he’s hanging on every word Mr. Whitaker is saying. I didn’t know anyone could be that interested in

his lectures. The old man seems to barely register that students are in the room.

His clothes, though stylish, almost look like he popped out of the wrong decade. It could be purposeful, but his pants are just a little too high and his cardigan looks like something Felix’s grandpa would have worn.

But the more I look at him, the less sure I am about my feeling. Maybe I’m just overreacting, still on edge after the blood drive.

FELIX: ???

GEORGE: IDK. He didn’t say much.

FELIX: Weird.

It certainly is.

FELIX: Wait, Snotty Silas?

It’s been a decade since he left, but he still hasn’t been able to shake the nickname.

GEORGE: one and the same.

FELIX: Now I’m really curious.

GEORGE: what’s new? we’ll talk later.

FELIX: L

The rest of the class continues in the same way, with Mr. Whitaker reading the remainder of the chapter out loud before assigning the short response questions at the end of the chapter for homework. He gives us the rest of the class to work on the responses, and the sound of pencils scribbling is mixed with the whispers of students. And for whatever reason, Jen never reappeared.

Available now, wherever books are sold.

D EATH IS PERMANENT.

WITH JUST A TOUCH, George experiences a person’s future death. High school is hard enough, but sixteen-year-old death witch Georgiana “George” Colburn can’t seem to catch a break. Even Jen’s ghost, the recently deceased popular girl who ignored George in life, won’t leave her alone. George is convinced her life can’t get any worse. That is until she bumps into the new student and witnesses his death at her hand.

When a coven mate, Trixie, offers to help her with her magic, George finds herself with a new friend and crush, but she knows even if she found the courage to ask her out, a relationship is impossible: she’d never be able to touch her. With the help of her friends, George must face her fears and learn to embrace her powers to unlock the secrets of her magic before blood stains her hands.

Cover Design: Maryann Appel Cover Artwork: Colin Verdi

Silver bullets aren’t enough to protect your heart.

For Liam Hunter, monster hunting is a way of life—a family tradition passed down for generations. But when campers are murdered in the woods, their hearts ripped from their chests, Liam finds himself facing his most terrifying adversary yet—his own mother turned monster. Her pack of werewolves will test Liam’s limits, and his connection with the girl who still has too large a claim on his heart.

Olivia Davis is determined to uncover her own place in Hunterland and hone her newfound abilities. But when Olivia has a terrifying vision, she’s faced with a much larger uncertainty: her feelings for the boy she let slip through her fingers.

Together, Olivia and Liam must survive the deadly game of cat and mouse, or else risk becoming victims in a world where the monsters are the hunters. The clock is ticking. The game is on. And the price of failure may be their humanity.

“Claire creates a perfect blend of magic, mystery, and family in Hunterlore. A master of tension, Claire has built a world that pulls the reader in and never lets go. I was rooting for Liam and Olivia, for their survival and their hearts. A wonderful ride through a dark world packed with intrigue!”

—Ginger Scott, USA Today bestselling author

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309683 | $19.99 | Releases 9/24/2024

Dana Claire is an award-winning author whose stories explore identity, fate, and destiny in the crossroads of romance and adventure. Her love of romantic tension and the supernatural effortlessly translates into spine-tingling action and unforgettable characters. Dana is also sharing her stories through speaking events and book signings. She lives in Los Angeles with her adoring husband, living her dreams: writing books, telling stories, and changing the world, one reader at a time.

A DEADLY DANCE BETWEEN PREDATOR AND PREY.

HUNTERLORE

T HE

H UNTERLAND S ERIES

DANA CLAIRE

PRAISE FOR HUNTERLAND

“A wild ride of a paranormal thriller with a will they/won’t they romance that will keep young adult readers turning the pages and wanting more.” School Library Journal

“Liv and Liam’s alternating perspectives construct an intriguing mystery . . . a satisfactory addition to the meta of fast-paced paranormal adventures.” Publishers Weekly

“Give this to your diehard Supernatural fans.” —Booklist

“Everything I want in a story—Monsters, family, romance, and humor. Don’t hesitate to one-click this one!” —Wendy Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweet Evil Trilogy

“Fans of Supernatural will not be disappointed with Hunterland. Dana Claire knocked it out of the park.” —Lynn Rush, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“Hunterland delights in every way. Both the intrigue and the romance are deliciously dangerous.” —Eva Pohler, USA Today bestselling author of The Underworld Saga

“In Hunterland, danger lurks everywhere. This coming of age adventure is filled with murder, mystery, the paranormal, and lots of thrilling twists and turns.” —Cameo Renae, USA Today bestselling author

“Hunterland is an angsty, action-packed adventure. In Dana Claire’s world every kind of creature is causing trouble, and the possibilities are as fun as they are dangerous.” —Jennifer Ann Shore, Amazon bestselling author of Perfect Little Flaws

HUNTER LORE DANA CLAIRE

HUNTERLAND

CLAIRE HUNTER LORE DANA

DANA

CLAIRE

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Fort Collins, Colorado 80524

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© 2024 by Dana Claire

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 1281 East Magnolia Street, #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309683

Paperback ISBN 9780744309775

Large-Print Paperback 9780744309812

eBook ISBN 9780744309799

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309836

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

5 3 1 2 4

To Katherine Bountry, whose unwavering belief in this series has breathed new life into it. Your passion for Hunterland and Hunterlore has deeply touched my heart.

Thank you.

1OLI V I A

There are terrors in the night that have nothing to do with monsters, and I was determined to become one. But first, apparently, I needed to learn to defend myself.

I shifted my weight on the hard wooden bench we’d pushed against the wall, along with the rest of the furniture, to give Liam and Nikki space to spar in the center of the room. The basement had been meticulously transformed from a storage area into a small gym and studio apartment that played home to our Hunterland learning center, for all things monster related.

“Whoa!” My little sister Pepper covered her mouth, bouncing on the edge of the seat beside me as Liam ducked Nikki’s wild punch. Nikki staggered when her fist met air instead of bone but smirked anyway.

Our simple, small-town Wisconsin lives had changed a few months ago when Liam Hunter, his sister, Jacqueline, and their father, Jack Hunter, showed up to investigate a string of suspicious suicides in my high school. Well, there was also that bit about a vampire nest and my mother turning into a vengeful spirit. That had thrown us for an even bigger loop.

While the Hunter family helped sort it all out, Liam discovered my sister and I had some magical abilities of our own, and Pepper and I had been fast-tracked to join them as hunters of things that go bump in the night.

Which brought us here. Doc, Hunterland’s appointed leader and our current instructor, thought watching Liam and Nikki fight would make a good introduction to training. But each punch made me wonder if I’d withstand even a few seconds of a battle with either of them, despite my newfound healer abilities. All three of us were seniors in high school, but they felt years older than me, and watching them bob and weave only added to that experience gap.

Liam ducked again, and Nikki snarled as she regained her footing. Even when she missed, she did it with sex appeal, whereas I’d likely resemble a newborn baby deer discovering its legs. Nikki’s body language shifted from slinky feline to prowling lioness, and I saw the monster hunter within, brimming with the ferocity I knew I needed to find for myself if I planned to survive this new life I’d stumbled into.

“Wow, look at them go.” Pepper elbowed me in the side. “They look good out there.”

Or they looked like two ex-lovers trying to show each other up, which for all intents and purposes they were. And of course, right after the twins showed up, Liam started to pull away. Instead of the budding romance I had thought we had started last month, now we felt like strangers passing each other in the halls of our shared living quarters. I asked for time to get to know each other, start with a friendship, with the assumption we’d end up being more. But his response was silence and distance. My ego was too fragile to actually ask what in the hell changed. So here we were, acting as if nothing had happened and the last several months between us meant diddly-squat.

My stomach clenched as Nikki flipped her perfect, lithe body on the exercise mats. Liam wasn’t mine, and probably never would be at this point, but seeing the kind of girl he’d chosen in the past made me

want to crawl into an oversized set of sweats and eat ice cream until I puked.

Nikki kicked Liam in the ribs and muttered something that sounded like “Sorry, love” in her annoyingly sexy British accent.

Pepper snorted. Her blue hair flopped over one eye as she leaned in. “That’s gotta hurt.”

I squirmed, unsure if she meant Nikki’s powerful blow to Liam’s kidney or the powerhouse-couple image the pair projected. As Pepper liked to point out every time I made doe eyes in the presence of our lead hunter, I’d been the one to push Liam into the friend zone first, so I had no cause to turn around and throw a jealous fit now that his old girlfriend had shown up.

Still, only a month ago . . . he’d been right there, sleeping next to me every other night, the two of us healing wounds we didn’t want to talk about with anyone else after we’d both lost our mothers in the worst possible ways. But maybe that was why I’d feared letting him in as more than an ally, someone who understood my odd abilities and who related to family trauma caused by the supernatural. If I’d let that relationship continue without a friendship first, I’d have risked Liam’s nomadic, closed-off lifestyle tearing us in two.

The air, already cloyed with sweat, thickened with the heavy scent of melted butter as Jazzy, Nikki’s equally beautiful but less obnoxious twin, plopped next to Pepper on the black painted bench. Her slender fingers were wrapped around a large, red bowl filled with freshly popped popcorn. She motioned for us to help ourselves to the snack. Pepper dove right into the buttery bowl. Jazzy smiled with bubble-gum pink lips, exposing her bright teeth. She bobbed her chin in the direction of Liam and Nikki. “This is when the two of them are actually fun to be around. Hold on to your knickers, it’s about to get very entertaining. Nikki always says a good spar is just as satisfying as sex.”

I groaned loudly, and Liam looked up at the sound. Nikki took advantage, landing a quick jab to his chiseled jaw. His blue eyes sliced

into me as if it were my fault she’d clipped him. Grimacing, he rounded back on her.

Her lips curled into an impish grin, and she threw her perfect curls over her shoulder. “I’m going easy on you, mate. It’s been so long since you’ve teamed up with real hunters, you seem a tad rusty.” She purred— yes, purred—the last few words.

Ugh, what is she even doing here?

Of course, I knew the answer. Her and Jazzy’s uncle, Doc—our current houseguest—had asked for their help in training my sister and me. But why couldn’t Doc do it himself? I’d thought hunters worked in smaller packs—the lonesome road of a supernatural assassin traveling on society’s knife edge. Why had so many congregated in my house? The vampire nest and vengeful spirits that had started this mess were gone.

I didn’t have those answers yet. But I couldn’t help but feel that with nothing to fight, the Hunterland gang were restless predators— and as a newbie, I was still prey.

Liam sidestepped to the right, evading a roundhouse kick so high, I wondered if Nikki could take flight. Her uncle, who was basically a supercomputer database of monster-hunting knowledge and lore, had mentioned she possessed a supernatural ability. Whatever it was, it probably trumped my power of premonition and status as resident healer. Just one more thing she had that I didn’t.

Including Liam Hunter’s attention.

Okay, yeah, pity party for one here. I didn’t say I was above sulking, did I?

“Are you sure you’re taking it easy on me?” Sarcasm soaked Liam’s words. “From the way you’re panting, I’d guess you’re either in heat or out of shape.”

Liam’s dig didn’t faze Nikki’s performance. Her leg kicked out and swiped Liam’s, sending him to the ground. She drove her fist toward his gut, but Liam rolled and scissored a leg around her neck, pinning her.

Within seconds she tapped out, and not a moment too soon. My throat had dried, and my angst was elevated to gag-reflex level.

Liam extended his hand, and Nikki accepted, rising with his assistance. His full lips were drawn upward. He rarely allowed peeks behind his hardened badass exterior, but when he did, that smile was so beautiful, it landed a gut punch to the heart.

I stood to excuse myself and end the torment, but the thunder of barreling boots on the stairs made me pause.

“Liam.” Doc appeared, his wide-eyed gaze landing on each of us as he descended, fixing upon Liam last. He adjusted the maroon turban that matched his sweater. “There you are. You’re needed. We have a situation.”

My eyes trailed above him to my father, who followed. He stood dressed in full police uniform—odd considering this was his day off.

“What’s going on?” My gaze darted back and forth between Doc and my father.

Dad’s tired eyes found mine beneath lowered lashes. “We have a murder case. A Hunterland murder case.”

2OLI V I A

Liam pulled off his soaked, practically transparent shirt and dabbed his forehead. His well-defined abdominal muscles danced on display as he breathed in and out, curling my stomach. Okay, so I couldn’t have him. Didn’t mean I couldn’t look anymore—even if it wasn’t the right time to ogle at all that taut skin, no matter how it glistened, covered in sweat. My undisciplined eyes made me a glutton for punishment.

Liam strode toward my dad with his head held high. “What happened?” His brows scrunched.

“Five bodies turned up in the woods about fifteen miles from here. My boys are calling it an animal attack—limbs missing, torsos torn to shreds.”

I shivered, while Dad raked a hand through his dark, newly thinning hair.

Finding out your dead wife ended up a vengeful ghost willing to kill her own family just to stay a spirit could age you quickly.

My father had encountered plenty of death, but supernatural murder took extra getting used to. It was likely why he had asked Doc to act as a live-in Hunterland tutor. And probably why he’d agreed to let Liam

and his sister, Jac, stay when their dad asked. Agent Hunter didn’t want to expose them to the hunt for their now-werewolf mother, Veronica Hunter.

“And you think otherwise?” Liam slicked back the wet strands of his dark hair. The muscles in his chest rippled with each movement as a single line of sweat traced along his pecs.

Dad nodded at him, Adam’s apple bobbing. “The victims are all missing their . . . their h-hearts.” He whisper-choked on the last word and gulped like it was hard to swallow.

I understood. I hadn’t fully come to terms with knowing monsters were real either.

“Shape-shifters?” Pepper looked at Doc for confirmation. She’d taken to his hunter lessons over the past month way better than any standard school curriculum. Claws and fangs, human-heart diets, minds possessed by spirits, bodies sucked dry till they were skin and bones, dark legends coming to life. She excelled in those subjects. With him, that punk rebel act dissolved, and she was a regular teacher’s pet.

“You’d be right, Poppet.” Doc finger-combed his salt-and-pepper beard. “Most likely werewolves, with the full moon last night.” He raised a brow at Liam.

Liam hung his T-shirt around his neck, holding onto the ends with his elbows hugged in tight as he paced the room. “Be thankful the body count wasn’t higher. Five’s nothing.” Liam’s cool composure had me throwing him a deep frown. I’d learned over the last several months that his style was less coddling and more a quick thwap to the back of the head, or in my case, the heart. In some ways, I appreciated the honesty, but when it came to gore and guts, a little tact would have been nice.

I fidgeted from foot to foot, still struggling to comprehend the reality of yet another mythical creature. “So, they can only shift on full moons, right?” Since dabbling in crystals, energetic vibrations, and spirituality, I had an advanced knowledge of astrology and the effects of the moon, sun, and stars. What I lacked were werewolf facts. We hadn’t

technically covered them yet in our studies. Doc’s recently wrapped lessons on spirits, occultists, and vampires had already tapped out my mental reserves.

“No, they can shift whenever they want.” Jazzy handed Nikki the popcorn bowl and threw her loose brown curls up into a bun, making her look like a tamer, more sophisticated version of her sweaty, still-panting twin. “But they can’t control the change under the full moon.” Unlike her sister, she’d come to training in a cute top with jeans. The twins were tall—like, model tall. Whereas her cut-off shirt would have met the top of my pants, it barely covered Jazzy’s bra. Clearly, she hadn’t intended to spar, or a boob might’ve fallen out. She crossed her legs at the ankles and leaned back, addressing Pepper and me. “Whether they want to or not, when the man in the moon flashes his pearly smile, they have to shift.”

Nikki handed the bowl to bright-eyed Pepper, who elaborated: “And the only way they can shift back when the moon is full is by eating a human heart.”

Ew. I plopped back onto the bench next to my sister, tucking my legs underneath me. How any of this was possible blew my mind and grossed me out.

“What if they don’t?” I asked. My sister filled her mouth with a handful of popcorn, speaking between chews. “Eat a heart, I mean?”

My stomach churned. How could she stuff her face with food while we were discussing chowing down on organs? Pepper had a steel stomach compared to mine, especially when it came to the paranormal.

Nikki shrugged. “Consuming a human heart is the only way for them to become human again. Until then, they stay in their animal form. Too long like that and they’ll go crazy, like a rabid dog.” The sympathy tingeing her voice surprised me.

“Great. Another unexplainable case to solve.” Dad rubbed the back of his neck and turned to Liam. “I’m on my way to the crime scene. I could use your help.”

Liam released his T-shirt from around his neck and tucked it into his mesh shorts.. He grabbed his hoodie and threw it over his head, threading his arms into the sleeves and pulling down the hem.

“Sounds good. Let me change into jeans and we’ll go. Nikki, you’re on this one with me. Grab your gear.”

Her green eyes sparkled like he’d crowned her homecoming queen. I really wanted to punch that look off her face, but I hardly knew how. And it wasn’t like I could protest Liam’s choice in partner. Really, what could I even say? I’d proved I knew nothing by asking the stupid werewolf question. I’d be a hindrance to the investigation. Sucky, but true.

“I’ll be outside in the cruiser, waiting.” Dad dipped his chin to the rest of us and headed upstairs.

I couldn’t help but notice the heavy hunch to his shoulders the past several days. Monster hunting had taken a toll on him. I still wasn’t sure he had processed our mother’s transformation, let alone our need to destroy her.

“What about the rest of us?” Jazzy reached across me to grab another handful of popcorn from the bowl on Pepper’s lap. If they didn’t stop going over me, I was going to smack one of them.

“It’s not necessary for us all to be there.” Liam’s eyes caught mine.

Warmth crept up my neck as a blush heated my cheeks. What he really meant was he didn’t want me to be there.

“And we don’t want Sheriff Davis’s officers questioning why he’s bringing teenagers to a closed crime scene,” Liam added for good measure. “Nikki and I will look strange enough. We don’t need an underage convoy.”

“We’ll go after they leave, then.” Jazzy grabbed the popcorn back from Pepper, dismissing Liam’s excuse with the same effortlessness she applied to scooping up her next handful. “I thought we were supposed to be training the Davis girls, not sheltering them. How can they learn about our world if we don’t let them in?”

Liam cursed behind his hand, rubbing his face. “It’s not safe.”

Dana Claire

Jazzy set the bowl on the floor and crossed her arms. “Nothing we do is safe.” Her expression added an unspoken duh at the end. “They aren’t made of glass. What’s wrong with you?” Her lips thinned into a tight line as her eyes pleaded with her uncle to intervene. Doc shook his head, silently declining to get involved.

“She’s not going. She’s not properly trained.” Liam gestured to me with all the authority of a drill sergeant.

I’d just readied a rebuttal when Jazzy speared Liam with a scowl. “Are you serious right now, mate? Are you so afraid for her safety that you won’t even let her use her gifts?”

I tensed, fists clenched at my sides. They were talking like I was invisible. But my protests stuck on my tongue. What would I even say? I wanted to be involved, but going to a crime scene with bloody bodies wasn’t all that appealing.

Having the choice to go? Now that sounded good. I’d much rather say no than be told I couldn’t do something. I guessed in that way Pepper and I were alike.

Instead of answering Jazzy, Liam pivoted, heading to the stairs. I gaped at his back. Nikki breathed down his neck as she followed. She had watched the whole exchange in smug silence, probably pleased to have him all to herself on the mission.

“Liam Noah Hunter,” Jazzy said, her syrupy sweet voice going hard as rock candy. “Do you want me to use my ability right now? Maybe that’s how we can start training the girls, since you won’t let them witness a crime scene. The fact you haven’t allowed it speaks volumes. You’re unfocused, and I am done waiting for you to wake up.”

Jac, Doc, and Nikki all sucked in a breath. Pepper and I exchanged confused glances.

Liam spun around, his jaw twitching. He dropped his voice low. “You touch Olivia, and you’ll have me to deal with.”

Touch me? Sweat dampened my armpits. Suddenly, I wanted to be anywhere else but in that room. What was Jazzy’s ability?

A roguish glint appeared in Jazzy’s emerald eyes. “You don’t scare me, mate.” She stepped toward me, and I retreated. “Trust me.” Her gaze softened, her eyes pleading with me to have faith in her.

“Olivia, don’t.” Liam’s voice gave me pause. I was tired of his safeguarding. I deserved to be every bit a part of Hunterland as everyone else in this room, and I’d prove it. I steadied my legs, locking out my knees, and sucked in a breath.

Jazzy moved closer and I held my ground. She reached out and clutched my elbow. Her mouth moved, softly whispered words I couldn’t understand escaping. Something in Latin, maybe. Heat permeated my veins like molten lava, and I screamed as if I’d really gone up in flames. Spots dotted my vision, until a burst of light morphed into colors and images.

I’d trusted Jazzy. She’d seemed nice. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was just as conniving as her sister. Maybe I’d put faith into the wrong hunter.

An earthy scent rife with stimulating pheromones enveloped me right before darkness crept in on both sides.

Available now, wherever books are sold.

Mara Cassidy is going to die . . . again.

For seventeen years, Evan Kiernan’s life has felt like painting by someone else’s numbers, moving and transferring schools every time his mom has a breakup. But when he’s accepted into NYU’s Promising Young Artist program for his senior year, the future suddenly feels like a blank canvas.

However, it soon becomes clear that the city has peculiar ties to his past. A thunderstorm finds him under the same umbrella as an eerily familiar green-eyed girl. A visit to an art gallery brings him face-to-face with a heavily tattooed portrait of himself. He sees things that aren’t there—at least not anymore. And the girl he’s falling in love with is somehow at the center of it all.

When history suddenly points to a devastating future, Evan must race against time to figure out who is pulling the strings and change the green-eyed girl’s fate—a race he’s already lost twice.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744310849 | $19.99 | Releases 10/15/2024

Lindsay K. Bandy writes historical and speculative fiction for teens, as well as poetry for young children. A former youth librarian, she now runs an award-winning library-based magazine program for teens and serves as the published member coordinator for the Eastern PA chapter of SCBWI. Her first novel, Nemesis and the Swan, was described by Booklist as an “intrigue-soaked work of historical fiction (that) feels entirely of the past and yet also incredibly relevant,” and was the recipient of an AudioFile Magazine Earphones award.

In addition to books, Lindsay has a soft spot for donuts, ghost tours, and power sanding. She can often be found rescuing old furniture from curbs in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.

Inevitable Fate

Lindsay K. Bandy

Inevitable Fate

Lindsay K. Bandy

Inevitable Fate

Inevitable Fate

Lindsay K. Bandy

Lindsay K. Bandy

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Fort Collins, Colorado 80524

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© 2024 by Lindsay K. Bandy

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 1281 East Magnolia Street, #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744310849

Paperback ISBN 9780744310863

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744310924

eBook ISBN 9780744310917

Audiobook ISBN 9780744310931

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

Interior artwork by AnastasiiaM, Cattallina, Chihiro Sawane, Grace Maina, Lazarev, Seamartini

5 3 1 2 4

FOR MY SISTER, WHO REMEMBERED

AND MY GRANDFATHER, WHO FORGOT

∫¢

IF LIFE WAS a highway, Evan Kiernan’s consisted of riding shotgun while his mother inched along in the right lane of I-95 looking for an exit so his little sister could pee.

This time, they were headed to Manhattan. It should have been only a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but in Evan’s experience, what should be rarely translated to reality. For example, kids should know who their fathers are. Diamond rings (plural) should lead to weddings (preferably singular), instead of pawn shops and moving trucks (plural). Five-year-olds should have a greater bladder capacity, and seventeen-year-olds should still be in high school— not riding shotgun while their mothers drive them to move-in day at NYU.

But maybe, for once, Evan Kiernan was about to be exactly where he should be. According to his mother, the Promising Young Artist program was his destiny, as if the sparkle-winged gods of the arts had arranged for his early college acceptance. Really, it was her, conspiring with his art teacher, Mr. Burns, to fill out the application behind his

back. Evan had been sure he had no shot in hell at getting into the elite program, which accepted one upcoming senior. One. But somehow, against all odds, they’d chosen him. He was still convinced it was some sort of mistake, due to his mother’s exaggerated belief that her son was exceptional and Mr. Burns’s glowing recommendation letter.

But the written application wasn’t the main criteria. His portfolio had gotten him into the program, and he couldn’t deny being proud of that, even if he wasn’t sure he was really Greenwich Village material. And as Hailey kicked the back of his seat in time with “Look What You Made Me Do” on the radio and wailed about needing to pee for the thousandth time, he couldn’t deny his that it would be amazing to have a little time to himself for once.

“Rest stop ahead!” his mom exclaimed, removing her hands from the steering wheel to applaud as she read the sign. “One more mile, okay, Hails? Envision the desert. Be the camel, baby.” She brought her thumbs and forefingers together as if meditating before taking hold of the wheel again.

Evan glanced at the speedometer. They were crawling along at six miles per hour. He ran a hand through the dark curls flopping into his eyes, then pressed his palm against the freshly trimmed sides, trying to ignore the small feet pounding his back. The song switched to “Flowers,” and when his mother started singing along with Miley Cyrus, he cringed and tried to go somewhere else—anywhere else—in his mind. He could have envisioned the desert, or been the camel, but instead, he went back to Advanced Drawing class.

To the day he drew her.

The drawing that changed everything.

It was his first day at Pennwood High School. They’d just moved out of their mother’s ex-fiancé Dave’s house and into a little Cape Cod with peeling white paint and a picket fence missing a few teeth.

That morning, he’d pulled rumpled jeans and a black-and-red flannel shirt from the box at the foot of his bed, wishing for another

ten years of sleep. Hailey had woken him multiple times through the night, scared and disoriented in her new room. His mom was downstairs already, in her bathrobe and slippers, cooking the traditional fresh-start breakfast/peace offering. He wondered, sometimes, if she’d become a realtor just to have the inside scoop on immediately available rental properties.

“You want me to iron your shirt?” she’d asked over her shoulder while flipping a pancake.

“Nah.” He gave her a sideways hug with one arm and reached for the coffee pot with the other.

She rubbed her cheek where his had brushed against it. “You should shave.”

“I can’t find the razors,” he said, even though he hadn’t really looked. “It’s fine.”

“Come on.” She cracked an egg into sizzling butter. “Don’t you want to make a good first impression?” She said it a little too brightly, and even without his contacts in he could see from the puffiness of her eyes that she’d been crying already this morning. He wanted to throttle Dave.

First impressions had lost their charm years ago, but transferring to Pennwood had been easy enough. After reviewing his portfolio the previous week, the head of the art department had agreed to place him in Advanced Drawing, Ceramics, and Advanced Painting Techniques.

“Honestly,” Mr. Burns had said during Evan’s registration appointment, glancing between his sketchbook and his mother. “He’s probably more advanced than the staff here. Have you considered art school?”

“He’s always been exceptional,” his mom had gushed while Evan looked at his shoes. She’d insisted he be tested for the gifted program in kindergarten, and ever since, she’d been using that word. Exceptional. She might as well have called him an alien. Exceptional was just another word for different. He’d read somewhere that all great artists

and writers feel that they experience the world fundamentally differently from everyone else, and he assumed that’s why so many of them became alcoholics and vagrants and mental patients. But Mr. Burns made Evan feel like maybe it was possible to be both different and normal at the same time—that unconventional didn’t have to mean unhealthy. And best of all, he kept a framed photo of his husband on his desk, which meant his mom wouldn’t be trying to line up any dates with another one of his art teachers.

His first assignment in Advanced Drawing class was to draw a face entirely from memory, so Evan closed his eyes and tried to picture Hailey. He couldn’t believe how hard it was to conjure up a detailed image of his own sister’s face. She had brown eyes like his, but how far apart were they in relation to the corners of her mouth? Her nose was . . . kid-sized, but what was the exact shape? Glancing around at his classmates’ work, they seemed to be having the same problem, laughing at each other’s attempts to draw friends or teachers from other classes. People they recognized, but who were all strangers to him.

Mr. Burns went behind his desk to pop a CD into an ancient-looking stereo system, and suddenly the deep thrum of electronic trance music transformed the atmosphere of the room. The rhythm became hypnotic as the beats per minute steadily increased and the notes blurred, like a dream. Evan stared at the backs of his eyelids, feeling like he was lost in some sort of European dance club. He tipped his chin toward the ceiling, and flashes of red flared through the darkness. Splotchy afterimages danced like flames, like the time they went camping with Dave and Hailey wouldn’t quit shining a flashlight in his face and gave him a migraine.

But then slowly, like a Polaroid picture, a pair of eyes began to develop.

Not brown and familiar. Not his mom’s or his sister’s or anyone’s from his old school. These eyes were a startling jade green, peering at him around a huge, heavy black door.

A girl.

Her nose and the apples of her cheeks were sprinkled with freckles, and her mouth was open in a tiny gasp of surprise, revealing a small space between her two front teeth. She was frozen in this expression, as if he’d knocked on her door and snapped a photograph as she opened it, shocked to find a stranger there.

He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he’d lose the image, so he fumbled for a pencil and began drawing furiously without looking at the paper. Who was she? Why was she opening the door? Would she invite him in?

He didn’t want to be a stranger to this girl.

But as soon as he finished the last wavy strand of her soft, black hair, it was as if the door closed.

The sound of murmuring and stools scraping the floor brought him back. When he opened his eyes, the whole class was gathered around his table, staring in silence.

It was only pencil, but the luminosity of the eyes was apparent even without color. He’d captured the girl’s surprise, and there was something so perfectly adorable about it.

“Who is she?” someone whispered.

Evan opened his mouth, then closed it again. He couldn’t tell an entire classroom full of seniors that he had no idea who she was. Not on his first day at a new school. Probably not ever.

“Just . . . a girl I used to know,” he said with a shrug, and looked into her pencil-drawn eyes again, overcome with a sense of wonder. She was beautiful, but not in a magazine cover way.

She was beautiful because she was so . . . so . . . real.

And that, he knew, was ridiculous because she was absolutely not real. He was sure he’d never seen that girl before in his life.

He would have remembered.

Ten months later, here he was, pulling into a rest stop in New Jersey with his mom and sister on his way to NYU because of her. The

Green-Eyed Girl, painted life-sized in oil, became the centerpiece of his portfolio. The piece that earned the attention of his program mentor, Dr. Vanessa Mortakis.

Absolutely luminous, she’d called it in the acceptance letter. Intensely realistic and gorgeously sensitive. I can’t wait to work with you in New York.

WHEN DR. MORTAKIS strode into the admissions office later that afternoon, Evan exchanged a surprised glance with his mom at Dr. Mortakis’s hourglass figure in a tight black dress, glossy ebony hair to her waist, and blood-red heels that defined her calves beyond professional levels. None of that had shown up in her headshot.

“Evan Kiernan!” she exclaimed warmly, as if greeting an old friend. “Welcome to NYU!”

“Thank you so much.” He shook her cool, slender hand, and her delicate bracelets jangled. “This is my mom, Melissa. And my sister, Hailey.”

“You must be so proud,” Dr. Mortakis said, clasping hands with Evan’s mother, then bending down to shake with Hailey, too. “And you must be really proud of your big brother.”

Hailey bounced up on her toes and nodded, and Evan felt a twinge in his chest. Ever since the acceptance letter arrived, his mom had been waving off his concerns about the cost of after-school care for Hailey and who would drive her to ballet or tuck her in when their mom had to work late. You’re her brother, not her dad, she kept insisting. It’s your job to grow up and live your life. It’s my job to take care of the two of you. Okay?

“You are cute as button!” Dr. Mortakis exclaimed, booping Hailey’s nose, and she giggled. Clearly, the professor hadn’t been along for the car ride.

“He’s so good with her,” his mom bragged as they took their seats in the admissions office. “He even illustrates little stories for her.”

Dr. Mortakis’s eyes brightened. “Really? Well, we have an excellent illustration department. That could be a great option for you.”

Evan smiled politely but kicked his mom under the table, hoping she wouldn’t pull out any doodled-on receipts or grocery lists from her purse to display The Adventures of Kitty-Corn. Whenever they were sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office or waiting for their food at a restaurant, Kitty-Corn embarked upon another zany adventure. It kept Hailey occupied, but it wasn’t exactly Promising Young Artist material.

“Let’s take a look at your course load for this semester,” Dr. Mortakis continued, and Melissa Kiernan’s purse remained mercifully on the floor. “I’ll answer any questions you have, give you a little tour, and then let you settle in before classes start up on Monday. Okay?”

She donned a pair of red reading glasses and opened his welcome packet on the desk. Evan’s heart raced with anticipation, making his face tingle a little.

He was really here. Really going to college early. Really a promising young artist.

“So, all our first-year students take English Composition and World History in their fall semester. You’ll get a science gen ed out of the way with bio, and then Fundamentals of 2-D is a prerequisite for upper-level studio art classes. However, I thought I’d sign off on one upper-level art history class, so you’re enrolled in Mythology in Modern Art, as well. I teach that one, and I’m here any time you need me, okay? If you’re ever feeling concerned or overwhelmed or even just homesick, I’m only a text, email, or two-block walk away. Melissa,” she said, covering his mom’s hand with hers. “I’m going to take great care of your son.”

“I know you will,” his mom said, smiling, but Evan could see the tears in her eyes already.

A few hours later, his clothes were unpacked and his desk was set up, and she and Hailey were all-out weeping in the doorway.

“This was your idea, remember?” he said, trying to make her laugh, and it worked. “If you don’t want me to stay, I can just tell Dr. Mortakis what a forger you really are—”

“You’ll do no such thing.” She laughed, and kissed his cheek. “And I’m not repentant.”

After they left, he sat alone on the twin XL mattress, waiting for his roommate to arrive. Waiting for his new life to begin. He was used to fresh starts and new schools, but this was different. As long as he kept his scholarship, New York would be his home for the next four years. He’d never lived anywhere for four whole years. And after graduation, if he liked it here, he could stay.

For seventeen years, his life had felt like painting by someone else’s numbers, waiting for grown-ups to tell him where to color next.

Watching the sun go down over New York City, he let it sink in. He wasn’t someone else’s canvas anymore. Now, he was the hand, holding the brush.

CHAPTER TWO

∫¢

EVAN ANGLED HIS flea-market chrome desk fan toward his face and closed his eyes. It was too hot to draw. The sweat on his palms kept smudging the pencil lines, and he was beginning to panic. He had to turn this smudgy mess in by two o’clock.

His son-of-a-billionaire roommate, Henri, was out, but his socks remained, stinking up the room. Evan got stuck with the Czech student who spoke no English but was somehow passing all his classes. Rich dads work wonders—not that he would know.

His first assignment for Mythology in Modern Art was to choose an ancient culture, then explain and illustrate three symbols of their mythology in a contemporary and relevant style.

Evan chose Egypt and decided to render the symbols as tattoo designs. He began with the scarab beetle. The ancient Egyptians believed that every morning the sun was pushed into the sky by a scarab beetle—a symbol of power and determination. He stylized it heavily in black and white—the sun and each section of the insect’s body and outstretched wings containing a different line pattern.

Lindsay K. Bandy

Next, the wedjat eye. Horus, the falcon god, supposedly had an eye that could heal and protect humans against evil. He sketched the almond-shaped eye with thick lines, the half-lidded pupil, the hooked J-line and then the straight one coming down from the bottom lid. It needed something—a hint of stippling on the inner lids for dimension. But of course, as soon as he got it perfect, he smudged it.

Damn it.

Holding his sticky palms up to the fan, he closed his eyes and of course he thought of her. That wedjat eye would look incredible peering out from her inner forearm. Or maybe—

Stop it, he told himself, and opened his eyes. She’s not even a real person. This is pathetic.

He cleaned up the smudges with a putty eraser, determined to complete his work on time. The final symbol he’d chosen was the phoenix. Sacred firebird. Symbol of immortality, rebirth, and life after death. Though he’d been too nervous to draw the beetle and the eye without the option of an eraser, he went straight to ink for the fiery bird. Flames had to be drawn without thinking, so he let his subconscious do the work. Zero to permanent in less than ten minutes. Perfection.

Evan smiled, sure Dr. Mortakis would be impressed. His first full week of independence was coming to a close, and he’d decided he could get used to it. Afternoon classes meant sleeping in, and there were no bells telling him when he was allowed to eat. He didn’t have to rush home to get Hailey off the bus. He’d sketched out a few frames of Kitty-Corn Explores New York, but he’d spent most of his free time drawing for fun. His thoughts, his time, and his paper were all gloriously his own.

Blowing on the page then tapping a phoenix feather with his index finger, he declared it dry and slipped it into a plastic, waterproof sleeve. It was definitely going to rain—he could smell it. It only takes one ruined masterpiece to learn your lesson: always use protection.

Stomach growling, Evan slung on his backpack and hooked his lucky golf umbrella over his arm. It was one o’clock, which left an hour to grab something to eat and hopefully dodge the storm before class. He knew he should go to the cafeteria or one of the restaurants around campus that accepted his meal plan, but he was in the mood to splurge a little. The stairwell was oppressive. Even the painted cement was sweating. The second clap of thunder shook Manhattan just as Evan hit street level. Scanning the sky between the scrapers, he saw a definite black cloud line.

The air itself seemed excited by the promise of a downpour as he passed through the gates of Washington Square. The wind kicked up, swirling little tornadoes of trash in the street as people hurried their dogs along and pedaled their bicycles faster. Evan walked faster, too, until a girl’s voice stopped him short.

“Oh, shit!”

In a sudden gust of wind, a long slip of paper somersaulted across thesidewalkinfrontofhim,thenflewintoaclusterofevergreenbushes, followed by a frantic girl.

“Shit, shit, shit!” She dove down into the mulch, thrusting her arm into the thick greenery. Evan stepped closer, unsure of whether he should try to help retrieve the paper or guard her bag, which she’d abandoned beside a stack of books on the wrought-iron bench to his right.

The wind made the decision for him. Like a wild bird, the girl’s paper took flight, and she continued the chase. He moved protectively toward the bench, eyeing her belongings with curiosity. A worn unzipped backpack lay on its side, advertising a wallet, a hoodie, and a pair of drumsticks to the pickpockets of New York. On the other side of the bench, she’d left a stack of library books: a splashy biography of The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, sat on top of a poetry collection and a thick self-help volume entitled Freeing Yourself From the Narcissist You Know.

The first, fat raindrop fell on Evan’s nose, and immediately, umbrellas popped up all around him, like fast-motion blooming flowers. People scrambled indoors and under awnings, holding their belongings a little closer as they ran. Evan glanced around the park for the girl while struggling to open his umbrella, finally turning around so the wind could help instead of strong-arming it closed. But as soon as the rusted metal button loosened the carriage, he lost control. Metal-spiked nylon careened inside-out, directly toward a cluster of pedestrians.

“Sorry!” Evan shouted, trying to grab the rim and right the umbrella without poking anyone in the eye. He heard a yelp, and then someone was grabbing onto the other side and helping him pull it down and right side out again.

As soon as the umbrella popped back into shape, Evan blinked in surprise at the girl suddenly standing under it with him, close enough to touch.

Green eyes. Freckles.

Wisps of dark hair escaping a long, damp braid.

And a soggy slip of paper clutched triumphantly between her thumb and forefinger.

“Sorry,” he repeated, feeling as if he’d been struck by lightning.

“It’s okay,” she said with a breathless laugh, brushing the windblown hair from her face as she looked up at Evan, then paused. Instead of ducking back out like any stranger would, she blinked as if trying to place him.

The city rushed around them in a wave—rain pelting their legs, people scrambling past in annoyance—but her eyes were like pieces of sea glass, shining like something broken and lost and beautiful. He was afraid to look away, sure she’d melt like sugar in the rain, but she just stood as if the same electricity was running through her, rooting her to the ground—

Until tires squealed and a cab driver laid on the horn and the girl blinked as if waking up from a dream.

“Oh, my books!” she exclaimed, scrambling toward the bench.

He followed, holding the umbrella over her as shook the books in an attempt to dry them.

“Can you hold this a sec?” she asked with a grimace, handing him the slip of paper before yanking the hoodie from her backpack.

She’d handed him a receipt from the New York Public Library, but as it fluttered in his grasp, he noticed the handwritten stanzas scribbled in purple ink all over the back.

“Thanks,” she said, snatching it back. “Sorry. That was weird, wasn’t it? I mean, I’m weird, showing up under your umbrella and asking you to hold my stuff when I don’t even know you.”

“It’s okay,” he said with a smile, nodding toward the paper. “Glad you found it.”

Her wet cheeks flushed pink and she pressed her lips together. “Oh. You witnessed that?”

“It must be a really good poem,” he said. “To leave your wallet for it.”

“Actually, it’s a song lyric,” she said, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. “But yeah. Thanks for not robbing me blind.”

“Your eyes are much too pretty for that,” he blurted, then shook hisheadasheatrushedtohisface.“Sorry,thatwas . . .thatwasweird.”

“Well, now we’re even.” Her smile bloomed, revealing a slight gap between her front teeth, and he felt like one of those stunned cartoon characters with little birdies circling his head, ringing bells.

Her phone buzzed in her palm, and when she checked the screen, she let out a groan. “Shit, I’m late again!”

With an apologetic wave, she stepped back out into the storm, attempting to cover her head with the hoodie. Her long, black braid swung like the pendulum of a clock, and in a flash of panic, Evan realized she was walking away.

“Wait!” he called, just as she reached the Washington archway.

Her head whipped around, and his heart stopped.

This is impossible.

“Here.” He extended the umbrella, motioning for her to come under it.

She hesitated, cocking her head and squinting, droplets falling from her eyelashes, but the sky roared again, and she quickly ducked under, grimacing at the clouds.

“Are you headed to class? I can walk you. I have time.” His stomach was growling, and another sizzle of lightning made him think about Benjamin Franklin and kites and keys and sudden death by electrified lucky golf umbrella. But lucky golf umbrellas don’t get you killed. They help you meet your dream girl in the rain.

“No, I’m not in school,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m headed to work.”

“Where do you work?”

Her phone buzzed again, and she let out a frustrated sigh. “The Black Cat Café. It’s just off the square. I was supposed to be there at one.”

“Me, too.”

She arched a suspicious eyebrow, and he felt his face go hot.

“Well, I don’t work there, I eat there. I mean, I was on my way to buy food there. Assuming there is food there?”

She nodded, suppressing a smile. “Drinks, too.”

“Great. That’s great. Because clearly, my brain stops working when I’m hungry.”

“Thisway,”shelaughed,pointingtotheleft,andtheystartedwalking, trying to avoid puddles as the downpour slowed to a steady purr. Following her lead, Evan found himself exiting the park, staring at the blinking yellow light of the crosswalk when he only wanted to look at her. It was easier to convince himself that they weren’t really identical when he was looking straight ahead instead of into her eyes. The light

changed, and her arm bumped his as they huddled close to stay dry while crossing the street. He thought he’d spontaneously combust.

He shot her a sideways glance. Were there really deep purple undertones in her black hair? It was the perfect color to complement her green eyes, striking as Georgia O’Keeffe’s black violets.

They ducked under the awning of the Black Cat Café, and Evan collapsed his umbrella. A pair of window boxes overflowing with red geraniumsframedeithersideoftheheavyblackdoorinsetwithasleek line painting of a sitting cat, its tail curled into a backward S on the glass.

Opening the door, she shivered in the blast of cool air on her wet skin, and he wished he had a jacket to wrap around her shoulders.

As soon as they stepped inside, a girl with unnaturally red hair started laughing from behind the counter. “Oops. Forgot we only have one umbrella.”

“Yeah, it’s mine on the way home,” the girl with the black hair replied with a pointed look, then unzipped her backpack and tented thewetbooksonatablebythewindowtodry.Shehunghersweatshirt over the back of a chair, checked her phone, then looked down and sighed at her soaked shoes. “I need to go stand under the hand dryer or something.” She turned to Evan apologetically. “I’ll be right back.”

Evan’s chest throbbed when she turned away, and he thought of the time Hailey’s father, Bill, took him fishing. The tug on the line. The resistance. The way his reel spun as the fish swam away from the shore with a hook in its lip while he fumbled for a hold to pull it back.

He had painted that for the spring Fine Arts Festival, too. The One That Got Away hung right beside Green-Eyed Girl.

Who is she? Everyone asked the question when they passed the larger-than-life girl peeking out from behind a heavy, black door. “Come on,” his mother had whispered slyly. “You can tell me.” But how could he? There was no model, no girl he used to know. He didn’t even copy some girl from the internet. “I just . . . I had this dream . . .”

he began, but his mother threw up her hands and started laughing. “Okay, TMI!”

“It wasn’t that kind of dream,” he’d insisted, but she just offered a patronizing, “Sure, honey, whatever you say,” and went downstairs to take dinner out of the oven. It hadn’t even been a dream, exactly, and certainly not the kind she was insinuating.

Suddenly, he became aware of the redhead’s stare and turned away to inspect the menu printed on a large wall-mounted chalkboard. His face was hot as he struggled to focus. He was in a New York City café, where people were expected to order and eat food.

Looking over the prices, his empty stomach sank. If he was going to eat anywhere other than the cafeteria this semester, he needed to find a job. He had already stopped by the university library, food services, and the custodial offices, but nobody had an opening for the seventeen-year-old kid spending his senior year of high school at NYU. Evan didn’t want to ask his mother to Venmo him more money. Maybe if she closed a deal on another property, she would send more, but he didn’t want her to have to do that. She needed that money for Hailey’s after-school daycare now.

He tried to ground himself to reality and study the daily specials. Lots of girls had green eyes and black hair and a gap between their front teeth. So, he had a type. So what? It was his empty stomach making him lightheaded, muddling his thoughts. How could he have seen clearly in that downpour, anyway?

But the way she looked at him.

There was recognition in her eyes.

Wasn’t there?

“So, you’re a friend of Mara’s?” the red-haired girl asked.

“Yeah, kind of,” he said, shrugging, but all ten pints of his blood rushed to his head. Mara. The name clicked as if he’d been trying to remember it. It fit perfectly. It should have been the title of the painting—except he hadn’t known her name when he painted her.

It wasn’t her, he reminded himself.

“I mean, we just met on the way here.”

Evan looked toward the register, where someone had decorated the display cups with black marker and arranged them in ascending order: a twelve-ounce undersea small with studded octopus tentacles gripping the cup; a sixteen-ounce Día de los Muertos medium covered in blooming skulls; and a twenty-ounce Empire State large with the geometric skyline of Manhattan.

“Yeah, those are Mara’s, too.” The redhead sighed. Evan read her name tag, scrawled in loopy handwriting, Samantha. “It’s sickening, the way she’s good at everything, isn’t it?”

He laughed uncomfortably. He hadn’t even known her name until thirty seconds ago, let alone what she was good at. She was a living, breathing stranger—not the girl whose portrait had gotten him into NYU.

Still, try telling that to his heart when she returned, smoothing her still-damp braid. “Okay, so, what can I get for you?”

“Um . . . How about this?” He pointed to the Empire State large display cup.

“A large? Sure. Large what?”

“Surprise me. As long as I can keep the cup.”

“This cup?” She picked it up, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“Yeah. I’m kind of like a collector of disposable art,” he blurted, immediately wishing he hadn’t.

She pressed her lips together, and Evan could hear Samantha stifle a snort from the back room.

“Disposable art?”

“Yeah. It’s a thing. And you know, whoever designed those cups is a really good artist. So, I thought maybe I could buy one.”

“Well, I guess I could sell it to you. But then I’m going to have to make a replacement.”

“Wait, you made these?” he said, feigning surprise.

“I draw when I’m bored,” she said, shrugging and trying to push the smile off her lips. She grabbed the cup. “So, what do you want in it?”

“Umm, coffee I guess?”

“Hot or cold?”

“Uh, hot I guess?”

She picked up a marker but paused. “Are you sure? You want to think about it for a minute?”

“No, I’m sure. Hot coffee. That’s my final answer.”

She laughed. “Name?”

“It’s Evan. I mean, I’m Evan.”

“I’m Mara.” She smiled, holding his gaze for an extra beat. “You want something to eat, too? You said you were hungry.”

“Right . . . um . . .” He leaned back, looked in the case, and blurted out the first thing he saw. “I’ll take one of those bear claws.”

“Oh-kay, coffee and a bear claw coming right up.”

He thanked her as the door opened and a pair of girls walked in, relieving them both from his painfully awkward ordering process. Pretending to read something on his phone, he took a seat by the front window and considered that, on the hottest day of summer, he had ordered steaming coffee and a bear claw for lunch. She must think he was real idiot. She was probably right.

Evan dropped his hand below the table to open his gallery. Swiping back to April, he scrolled through the photos of the Spring Fine Arts Festival.

He stared at The Green-Eyed Girl for a long minute, then hit delete. The only thing weirder than meeting a disposable art collector would be meeting a complete stranger who painted you last year.

He jumped when a phone buzzed from the empty table beside him, and he realized Mara had left it behind with her library books. He tried to catch her eye, but she was busy steaming milk for the girls at the counter. When Samantha brought his coffee and bear claw to

the table a few minutes later, he pointed toward the phone, which was buzzing again.

Samantha took one look at the screen and rolled her eyes. “She so needs to block her.”

Without further explanation, she picked up Mara’s phone to decline the call, and Evan could see that the screen was lit up by a caller simply labeled “X.”

Shaking her head, Samantha carried the phone behind the counter, where she shoved it into Mara’s back pocket and whispered something into her ear. The steamer went silent, and Mara’s hands went to her face in before shaking her head. Samantha raised her palms in surrender before going into the back room.

Evan looked from Mara’s sagging shoulders to the library books on the table.

Freeing Yourself From the Narcissist You Know.

If the caller was Mara’s ex, that at least meant she was single— but from the way her posture changed after finding out about the call, maybe not quite free?

The bell above the door jangled as a sudden rush of dripping, laughing students poured through the front door of the café, forming a line that would keep Mara and Samantha busy for the foreseeable future. Tables began filling up, so Evan rose to throw his dirty napkins away and set the crumby pastry plate in the dish tub. Feet anchored beside the garbage can, he wanted to say it was nice to meet you, or that was a really tasty bear claw, but Mara was occupied with the blender. With a sigh of resignation, he turned for the door. But just as he reached for the handle, he heard his name.

“Evan?”

His heart jumped.

“Thanks for the umbrella!” she called.

“Sure,” he said, trying to swallow his heart so he could speak. “Yeah. Any time.”

“See you later?” Across the crowded café, she held his gaze, unmistakably inviting. As if whoever “X” was, they were completely irrelevant now.

He nodded, feeling a smile consume his entire body. “Absolutely.”

∫¢

WHENDR.MORTAKISaskedifanyonewouldliketocomeuptothe front to share their three symbols of an ancient culture’s mythology, Evan slid a little lower in his seat. A few students displayed cartoonish Greek and Nordic symbols that were clearly not as skillful as Evan’s Egyptianones,buthewasn’treadytoshareinanupper-levelarthistory class quite yet. He was also too distracted by his empty cup and the girl who’d written his name on it.

Mara. She wanted to see him later—but how much later? After class was too soon. Was tonight too soon? He could go back tomorrow and ask her to dinner, or to a movie. He didn’t have to babysit, didn’t have to ask his mom if he could borrow the car. He was in the driver’s seat of his own life now. He could go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted, with whoever he wanted—

ButthenEvanrememberedhewasreallyjustahighschoolsenior. He was only seventeen—and she was out of school. Did that mean she was twenty-two? Twenty-three?

“Your next assignment,” Dr. Mortakis said from the podium, clearing her throat and jolting Evan back to the present. “Is to visit an art exhibit here in the city. It can be anything that intrigues you—a museum such as the Met or MoMA, or a small gallery in the Village. Your job is to search for the past in the present. You’ll need to find three pieces of artwork that are considered modern—remember, nothing before 1860—that incorporate an ancient or mythological subject. To ensure that you’ve put your time in, I’m requiring both a

photograph and a sketch. I have some flyers here at the podium if you would like some ideas, but let’s take a look at a few examples up on the screen so you know what to look for.”

Evan tried to pay attention to the flurry of slides depicting a Cubist Virgin Mary, a Dada collage of Greek heroes, and an Impressionist version of Icarus plummeting into the sea, but he wasn’t sure how much to write down. Would she test them on these slides if they weren’t in the book, or were they only examples? He wrote furiously, but even as his pen flew across the page, his mind drifted to Mara. What kind of song was she writing on the back of that receipt? Did she sing or play the drums, or both? Who was this narcissist she was trying to free herself from—and just how persistent were they? Was she in actual danger? Should he check in sooner rather than later, just to be safe?

“Many people believe that modernism was about leaving the past behind,” Dr. Mortakis said, as the screen went dark and the lights came up. “But that’s not only incorrect, it’s impossible. Modernists left tradition behind in favor of experimentation. Rather than strict realism, these artists began incorporating their own interpretations of reality into their visual art. But they were not attempting to erase the past. They simply interpreted it through a new, more interesting lens. As King Solomon said so eloquently in the Book of Ecclesiastes, ‘What has been, will be again. What has been done, will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.’”

Finally, the hour was up. Slinging his book bag over one shoulder and hooking the soggy umbrella over his elbow, he picked up his empty skyline cup and headed for the door.

“Evan?”

Dr. Mortakis smiled warmly at him, fanning a stack of papers.

“I thought you might really enjoy this exhibit,” she said, handing him a glossy postcard advertising Coney Island: A History in Pictures, at the Neptune Gallery. “It’s only open for a few more days, though, so you’d better hurry.”

“Thanks.” He nodded, scanning the info. “Oh, hey, I wanted to ask you—do you know of any place I could get a job on campus? Something flexible with my class schedule?”

“Hmm.” She tapped her lips with a crimson-tipped finger. “I’ll see what I can do. And let’s make that first mentor appointment, okay? How about Monday for lunch? With Labor Day, I don’t have any classes, so we’ll have plenty of time to chat.”

“Sure. Um, where’s your office again?”

“Actually, there’s a little place I like off Washington Square—the Black Cat Café. How does that sound? Twelve thirty?”

“Perfect,” he said, attempting to appear nonchalant, as if she weren’t some sort of fairy godmother making all his wishes come true. “I’ll be there.”

Available now, wherever books are sold.

M ara Cassidy is going to die . . . Again

FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS, EVAN KIERNAN’S LIFE HAS FELT LIKE PAINTING by someone else’s numbers, moving and transferring schools every time his mom has a breakup. But when he’s accepted into NYU’s Promising Young Artist program for his senior year, the future suddenly feels like a blank canvas. However, it soon becomes clear that the city has peculiar ties to his past. A thunderstorm finds him under the same umbrella as an eerily familiar green-eyed girl. A visit to an art gallery brings him face-to-face with a heavily tattooed portrait of himself. He sees things that aren’t there—at least not anymore. And the girl he’s falling in love with is somehow at the center of it all. When history suddenly points to a devastating future, Evan must race against time to figure out who is pulling the strings and change the green-eyed girl’s fate—a race he’s already lost twice.

Cover Design: Maryann Appel

Cover Artwork: Knopazyzy, Red

Adult Fantasy