Hangover Round 1 Entry #27

Title: GHOST RIVER

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

When Veronica’s quiet new life is interrupted by murder, mystery and ghosts, she must prove the innocence of a friend by using clues from the ghosts to find the real killer, before the killer finds her first.

     If God had meant for humans to live on the water, we would have fins like Aquaman  

and hair that doesn’t frizz.

     Since I had neither, I wasn’t getting out of my car.

     Then the wailing started. Fitzgerald, my none-too-patient cat, was tired of her kitty

carrier and wanted out. Now. I had the carrier seat-belted in the back, surrounded by

suitcases, boxes and anything else I could find for packing. My whole life was in my car.

Well, my old life. My new life was outside the car, and it scared me.

     The cat upped her wailing to rock concert level, while the large iced tea from lunch

started to make demands on my bladder. I unlocked my door; it was time.

     Grabbing the cat carrier and as many suitcases as I could carry,  I walked over to the

entrance to Mary’s Marina, my new home. The marina was on a river. Not one of those

cute little friendly rivers, this was a serious river—big, wide and deep.  The ramp down

to the marina was steep and worn. It had railings on both sides, but it was a long way

down to the dock and the houses.

     The waves pushed up against the dock, making the ramp sway to and fro.  I stood

there and swayed with the ramp, hypnotized by the motion. My stomach swayed, too, and

my face started to feel green around the edges.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #26

THE ROAD TO SLANU

YA/FANTASY

Lost in purgatory and seeking entrance into the gates of heaven, sixteen-year-old Katie must endure the five stages of grief to live in eternal peace or risk the horror of capture by the elusive Wanderling and be damned to darkness forever.

My eyes open wide in panic, the flood of my heartbeat in my ears momentarily overriding all other sound.

            “Help me!” My screams fall flat on the wooden walls that trap me. I kick out my legs, wincing with pain when they strike the solid walls of the coffin. The touch of the cool fabric that covers my bare skin sending me even further into a blind panic.

            “Oh God, Oh God…HELP ME!” I pull and claw at the cloth, the muted squeaking of the lid as it slowly opens causing me to stop suddenly.

            “Hello?” My only answer is the rustle of the trees far overhead. The wall of dirt stretches upward farther than I think I can climb.

            The shadow moves silently, the dusting of broken dirt from the flick of his tail alerting me to his presence. My back rigid, I grip the edges of the box struggling to swallow my gasps for air. My heartbeat continues to pound in my ears as I ease myself back into the coffin, the fear of the outside greater to me than the fear of this tomb. I watch the rolling black clouds as they rush across the sky above leaving a trail of gray mist behind. Only my eyes move as I watch the animal from below. His tail continuing to flick over the graveside, his enormous body casting a magnified shadow on the mountain of dirt above.             

         “Who are you?” I ask the question so softly that I doubt even my lips move. 

Hangover Round 1 Entry #25

Title: Pursuit of Craze

Genre: Urban Fantasy

 

Allie Trask thought turning 30 was scary enough, but when seven wicked Nephilim come to Earth to claim her rock star boyfriend’s life, she suddenly has a bigger battle on her hands than crow’s feet.

 

Allie loved browsing the produce section of any grocery store, but especially the one in this little market with its soft lighting, faux hardwood floors, and piped- in classical music. The fruits and vegetables were organic here, not the shiny reds, greens, and yellows that glowed cartoonishly under the glaring lights of the airport hangar sized grocery store down the street. They seemed earthier here, more dignified.

She scanned her shopping list. Only one more item to go and she would have all of the ingredients for Daemon’s favorite dinner- baked spaghetti.

            “Aha.” She plucked a flawless green pepper from the mound and held it up like a prize. Firm, evenly green, and extra large. She dropped it in the basket hanging from her arm, atop a package of fresh pasta.

Nowadays, even the minutiae of her life brought her pleasure. Buying a green pepper, folding their laundry, buying Daemon’s deodorant, reading excerpts from trivia and factoids books to each other over unhurried weekend meals. Not that she’d ever admit to the deodorant part. She could picture her girlfriend’s reaction to that little tidbit- hot stepping away from her with palms raised, like she was an armed madwoman.

 The thought made her grin as she tucked her grocery list into the pocket of her jeans, swung around to head to the registers at the front of the store, and promptly collided with another shopper. 

“Oh my goodness, please excuse me, I…” Allie looked up, and the apology dissolved on her tongue.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #24

Title: My Life and Troubles as a Teenage Assassin

Genre: YA Thriller

 

When 17-year-old Mikaela infiltrates her parents’ assassin organization to save her boyfriend's life, she risks becoming a fulltime killer like her mom and dad when circumstances force her to murder in the name of justice.

Please don't let my parents kill my boyfriend this time, I prayed. I had avoided this moment for as long as I could, but of course, it had to happen.

“Mikaela?” Cory’s voice broke through my thoughts. I could feel his eyes watching me from where he sat in the passenger’s seat.

“Yeah?” I clutched the steering wheel and stared out the windshield, even though I’d already parked the car and cut it off. We had arrived at my gray suburban two-story house. An ordinary home that made my parents appear normal to the outside world.

“Are you okay? I know you’re nervous about this, but you look pale.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Riiight. It took us fifteen minutes to get here, and it’s a ten-minute ride from my house to yours. And now look at you. Geez, we’re just having dinner with your parents.”

“It’s not just dinner. It’s a boyfriend-meets-the-parents dinner.” I swallowed.

“Yeah, and everything’s going to be fine. So why do you look scared to go inside your own house?”

If only he knew. No, scratch that. If he knew, he would’ve hightailed it out of this relationship a long time ago, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

Like how you might end up at the bottom of a river, courtesy of my parents. “Nothing really. Just…stuff that happened last year.”

Hangover Round 1 Entry #23

Title: JUMPING ANTS

Genre: Upmarket Commercial Fiction

When a charming but aimless twenty-nine-year-old is carjacked at gunpoint at a fast-food drive-thru, his journey with the peculiar yet desperate stranger leads them both on a mission to convince the women they love that although you can’t change for someone, you can change because of someone. 

"You gotta go, Bro." Scott's hand was on the door jamb blocking Max Walker's entry to the one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment the two had shared for the past year — and shared intimately. The shotgun layout didn't allow for much privacy.

Through the doorway currently being obstructed by Scott's armpit was the living room with the futon that was Max's bed. At the opposite end of the apartment was Scott's bedroom, roughly equal in size to where Max slept. That Scott's bedroom had a door and the only bathroom wasn't a source of conflict until Scott's new girlfriend arrived. She resolved things by discovering the bedroom door had a lock, which Scott never used, but she did. Often.

Fortunately, the flirtatious repartee Max had cultivated with the barista at the café on the corner had rendered the "customers only" bathroom always open to him. Problem solved.

Max shifted his grocery bag to his other hand. His six-foot-two height allowed him to see over Scott's head and into the galley kitchen. There she was. Tara. The girlfriend. She was leaning against the short fridge with her arms folded across her chest. Though Tara's was not an unusual position in Max's presence, Scott's was.

Stifling Max's sense of humor around tension was like trying to stop a sneeze. "Guess I should be grateful you're 'sexiling' me in person instead of using that ratty wool hat," Max said. 

Maybe the nod to their shared history would lower the gate that was Scott's arm.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #22

Title:  Ewan's Diary

Genre: Historical

 

Margaret Macrae and Philip Domin have one thing in common – a messed up life. Their lives come together in the small mountain town of Hannah’s Fork where a mutual fascination with a 200 year old diary sends them on a search for clues to a treasured land map and the powers trying to steal it.

Philip Domin was running away. From the city, from the law, from his life. And if he had any doubts, he only need remember Estes’ laugh mocking him when he was about as low as a guy can get.

Phil had thrown a left hook straight out of all the buried frustration of the years that right now felt pretty much like a wasted life. It was the kind of haymaker he hadn’t thrown since his Golden Gloves days. Any DA will tell you a bloody nose, even broken eyeglasses, might be tagged as a disagreement between friends. But add some missing teeth, a dislocated jaw, a serious concussion and blackout resulting from a head hitting the floor with some force – that adds up to felonious assault.

Estes filed charges. Phil opened the atlas of the United States, covered his eyes with one hand and stabbed the page with a pen. It landed on Hannah’s Fork, North Carolina.

“Who the hell ever heard of Hannah’s Fucking Fork, North Carolina?” He wonderedwhat made some broad’s fork important enough to name a town after it. Was it made of gold? Did she commit murder with it?

He peered at all the green around the town. Appalachian Mountains, Nantahala River, Osborne River. Not a decent city in sight. “No wonder nobody ever heard of it. Boondocks.” He raised the pen to take another stab but thought better of it.

“Remote is good. But how in hell am I gonna get there?”

Hangover Round 1 Entry #21

THE CHILDREN OF THE NEPHILIM

YA – Sci-Fi

When sixteen-year old Paxton discovers the Great Rescue was the largest abduction in the history of mankind she realizes she and her fellow teens weren’t taken from Earth to ensure the survival of humanity but that of their alien captors. To save her friends and herself, she must first accept that good and evil don’t always run skin deep.

My knees ached from pressing into the honeycomb design of the metal deck.  Leaning forward, I pushed my forehead against the tiny porthole in my berth, waiting until the ashen rock that was once Earth rotated into view. 

It had been two years since I touched a blade of grass — two years since fresh air entered my lungs.  Yet the brilliant greens and blues of the bejeweled planet that had been my home for fourteen years rarely entered my thoughts.  More often, I was haunted by the last images engraved into my memory.  Shadows.  Darkness. 

Every day I waited for it… and every day I experienced the same anguish.  My ravaged planet finally appeared and an odd excitement flooded my veins before subsiding to a dull pain.  I remained frozen until the grayish light vanished. 

I shut the shade and stood, my legs warming as the blood slowly returned to them.  Even with the burned planet out of sight, the pounding in my chest continued, making it difficult to breathe.  I glanced at the time and knew I should be heading to the galley but I couldn’t convince myself to go. Not yet.  What I wanted was some hope.  My eyes moved to the pile of neatly stacked books that lay on the floor. 

I grabbed the novel on top and ducked into my pod, wanting to think about something other than the assembly scheduled for tonight.  The leader of One Nation had ordered a meeting and would soon arrive on the Mayflower. 

Hangover Round 1 Entry #20

TITLE:  A QUESTION OF FAITH
GENRE: YA Magical Realism

Learning that she's magic incarnate turns fifteen-year-old Crystal's religious beliefs upside down, but she has more to deal with than questions about faith and her soul when her boyfriend is kidnapped by a witch hunter and shamans snatch her aunt.

Our attic door is always padlocked, but now the stairs hang down into the hallway like a lolling tongue from a particularly dark and dusty mouth.

Before I can climb one step, a trash bag, and then another, lands at my feet.

"Oh!" I jump back in surprise.

Mom hurries down the stairs, a plume of dust following her. My mom, the attic ninja.

"Crystal! I thought you were getting ready to go to the library."

My chance to see inside the attic thwarted, I huff and cross my arms. "I heard you up there, and I wanted to see—"

"Can you take these bags to the kitchen for me?" She forces a smile and hands me the bags, then lifts the steps, closing and locking the attic.

Maybe she’s hiding my present up there. I turn sixteen on Monday. But that doesn't explain why she's never let me up there before…

I do as she asks and drop the bags near back door. Although bulky, the bags are surprisingly light. Wonder what's inside them.

I lean against the counter as Mom comes into the room.

"I'm sorry for snapping. You just caught me by surprise." She brushes her dyed strawberry blonde hair behind her shoulder, and dust drifts onto her shirt.

"What were you doing up there?"

"Just a little cleaning. There's so much junk up there it isn't funny. We're lucky the house hasn't caught fire, but at least I'm making progress."

Hangover Round 1 Entry #19

TITLE: The Gray Line

GENRE: Suspense/Thriller

Trent Argent discovers a plot to destroy Boston and jumpstart Armageddon, orchestrated by an Afghan nomad in league with U.S. government officials who believe the biblical Rapture is imminent. He stumbles through a maze of lies, tangled loyalties, and betrayal in a desperate bid to save the world he knows and the woman he loves. But he can't save them both....

Trent ignored the streaks of mud and bug-splatter that smeared the windshield, casually dodging a donkey cart and accelerating around a garishly decorated truck spewing smoke as it chugged its way toward Kandahar. A small boy carrying bread darted out from the left, just as a burka-covered woman ventured hesitantly out from the right. Trent froze them with a horn blast and weaved between them. He smiled as he thought of how Gayle, his favorite BBC correspondent (and so much more), described navigating traffic in Afghan garb: “It’s like trying to cross a bloody eight-lane highway while looking through a  kaleidoscope!”

A dog wandered onto the road. Trent tapped the brakes and swerved to the left. The dog froze and then darted to the left, directly in his new path. He braked harder and swung back to the right, just as the dog decided it would be safer to scamper back. He pulled harder to the right, and the wheels rode along the very edge of the shoulder, inches from a deep ditch. The dog dodged left again, and the Toyota just slipped past him, teetering on the edge of the road. Trent held the wheel hard and turned it to the left in tiny increments, pulling them back onto the road, where he brought the vehicle to a stop and lowered his head onto the steering wheel.

“Hey, good driving, man,” said Massimo, his fellow UN field Officer.

“Yes,” agreed their translator, Haider, “but you missed the dog.”

Hangover Round 1 Entry #18

TITLE: NOTES ON A REBELLION

GENRE: YA/FANTASY/ADVENTURE/ROMANCE

At seventeen, Random Knight thought living in a prison compound attacked by flying sea serpents was terrifying, but when she and her fellow raiders confront the Thayne warriors, she must be prepared to fight an unexpected adversary – the embodiment of all that’s evil.     

I'm facing death and just seventeen. Hell's teeth, I so know how to get myself into trouble. AThayne warrior stares me down, his jaw rigid with hate. A dazzling flash of light from the overhead beam bounces off the knife in his leather gloved hand. Bile rises in my throat as I imagine what it'll feel like as he pushes the knife into my body – to lose my life as blood pours out of the tear in my flesh. Where will that shiny, razor sharp blade go?

In my heart?

Across my throat?

He's big – six and half feet at least, each flexing muscle accentuated by the sweat glistening on his huge body. His armor is so highly polished the reflection is blinding. This guy means business. In this crystal clear moment his business is killing.

As I wait for him to attack, an overpowering, acrid smell falls from the sky. Sulphur! 

The Nicor have left their nest. Could this get any worse? Slashed to pieces by a Thayne or torn to shreds by a Nicor. This has all gone so wrong.

The Nicor swoops about overhead, pissing acid over everything below. When the acid hits the ground bubbling and fizzing, a sticky yellow gloop spreads across the dirt. It stinks like nothing else on earth. This is how they get us. If that stuff hits you, you're in deep ca-ca. Last month a guy from our prison shelter was hit by an acid bomb and his body turned to soup. He didn't scream – he didn't have time.                                                                                                                              

Hangover Round 1 Entry #17

TITLE: Apple Boxes

GENRE: MG Contemporary

What do you do when life hands you a bunch of apple boxes? You move. Again. Soon to be 8^thgrader Jayden relies on her wit, humor, and frustratingly quirky family to make this lonely and boring summer one she will never forget.

“Hey Jay-Bird, are you in there?” I heard Dad holler into the house from the garage, “I need you to come out here and give me a hand.”  Ugh, what now.  I put a bookmark between the pages of my book, tossed it aside, slipped on my sandals and headed out front.

            Dad’s truck was parked in the driveway and the back was filled with empty apple boxes. I stopped in my tracks and my heart sank. Oh man, here we go again.  

            “Dad, does this mean what I think it means?”

            “Do you think it means we’re moving?” he replied with a tinge of his usual sarcasm.

            “Well, it’s the first thing that came to mind.” I sassed back.

            “Then yes, oh Observant One, you are correct.”

            Apple boxes.  It’s always apple boxes.  Occasionally a banana box finds its way home, but mostly apple.  They are the perfect size, he says.  And they usually have cut out handles – makes them easier to carry.  He also worked at a grocery store, which made them easy to come by.

            “Already?” I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air. “We haven’t even been here six months.”

            “The landlord is putting this house up for sale,” he said as he dropped the tailgate. “We’re not going to sit around and wait for him to kick us out.  Mom and I found another place not too far from here and we can move in right now.  Might as well get it over with.”

            How far is not too far? I sighed loudly and grabbed a couple of boxes. 

Hangover Round 1 Entry #16

Title: Dragonfriend

Genre: YA - Epic Fantasy

 

 

Born with a lame arm, Munjin’s family of beet farmers thinks he is useless. A dragon-sighting, however, heralds his true calling as a mage. Unfortunately, the sorceress that takes him as apprentice fears the dark future she sees in him, and limits her teaching. His only friend is a dragon named Flew-Across-The-Bent-Wing-Lake-But-Fled-From-The-Giant-Crow, who can change into a girl his own age. “Lake” needs him to help her take down a runt god that killed her brother. If Munjin can survive his magical training, and deal with his growing feelings for Lake, then he just might find a way to save Lake, and all the young dragons, from the predatory godling.

 

 

The lazy afternoon sun shone down on three boys with hate caked under their fingernails. The soft breeze, full of the fine autumn aromas of pine and cut hay, could not remove the scent of their prey. Like the harvest scythe, the trio left broken stalks in their wake.

“Munji …”

Munjin stiffened as his name floated over the grass and rattled the length of his spine. He knew the voice—Silas—and it packed his belly with the mincemeat of dread. Not the biggest of the Kolva brothers, or even the meanest, Silas possessed an unerring ability to find Munjin when he was alone.

Munjin pushed himself up from the tree trunk he had been dozing against and awkwardly adjusted the sheepskin hat that might have fit a larger boy. The vivid feeling of his dream, of soaring through the clouds, almost choked him with missed promise. He wanted to return to slumber and fly away from the cruelty of Silas Kolva.

Munjin cut his gaze to the nearby creek as it burbled past him. He preferred possible drowning to another round with the village’s premier bullies. Silas, leading his fellow bruisers, strode toward him through the high grass. Like wolves, the Kolva brothers traveled in packs. Five of them together made a savage fist that hammered unlucky dogs and lone boys.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #15

TITLE: HAVEN

GENRE: YA Sci-Fi

On an alien planet called Haven, human refugees fleeing their dying world have been quarantined by the creepily stoic and strange looking Locals. Seventeen-year-old Hope and her ex-boyfriend are among the specimens undergoing mysterious holographic simulations in the Stacks.

 

The walk down the round white tunnel that led to our Stack for the day felt like a slow march toward doom. I knew the other Specs ahead of me and behind me were all feeling the same thing. What would today bring? Sometimes there were repeats. Another tornado hurtling at us at full speed? Or a herd of large, hairy, hump backed beasts that would charge the ten of us any minute?

 

Maybe it would be something simple. A simple session would be good today. Dress us up in funny costumes and play music. They’d done that once. Just to see what we would do. I think that’s what that was… unless we were supposed to do something and we didn’t. Every time, we tried to maintain a team spirit. That was important above all else. Not only because a lot of the Specs thought what I did, that the sessions were a test of some kind. But also because we had to be a team because if it was a bad day in the Stacks, working together was the only way to survive.

 

Someone nudged me from behind and I turned to see Weeks grinning at me from ear to ear. Weeks got his name from parents who’d given in to the doomsday thinking back on Earth, near the end. Some of the kids had names like his now. Days, Weeks, Hours. They’d named their kid after the amount of time they thought they had left. But instead of turning out gloomy and depressed, Weeks was an incontrovertible optimist.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #14

TITLE: Shifted
GENRE: YA Sci-Fi (multi-cultural)

When 15-year-old Kaia Davis discovers she can control one of the atomic elements, she joins The Shifters, a covert unit who fight to stop terrorists and save the world.
Or, at least, that's what they were told.
 

Yesterday?  High school student.  Today?  Terrorist.  That has to be some kind of record.

Kaia Davis stole a quick glance around the sterile interrogation room where the officers had dumped her.  There weren't any cameras – well, not any obvious ones.  In a room like this, someone had to be watching.  She knew she should try to look calm for her unseen observers, but she couldn’t stop herself – her leg bounced out a staccato rhythm under the plain steel table, and her hand kept time by pulling at her pendant so hard it gouged into the back of her neck. 

No matter how many times Kaia replayed it in her head, she couldn't pin down what had gone wrong.  She had checked and re-checked the current "banned items" list while she packed – she'd even checked it again before she left for any last minute additions.  True, no adult had gone over her luggage (Please.  The Johnsons wouldn't have helped me even if I'd asked), but Kaia knew she had been extra thorough.

There hadn't been any problems when she got on the plane in New York.  Nothing strange in flight, either.  When she had arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport (or Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle, as her French teacher would say), she had been happy just to be somewhere new.  Sure, it was only an airport, but it was a new airport, where the tubes connecting the terminals were made entirely of glass, and the voices on the intercoms weren't speaking English by way of Long Island.

When she had entered the security checkpoint, she hadn't been the slightest bit nervous.  Why should she have been?  The most offensive thing in her bag was acne medicine.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #13

TITLE: ELEMENTAL FIRE
GENRE: Upper MG Fantasy 

Thirteen-year-old horse-crazy Brook stumbles into the parallel world of Tirasvara. She meets natives with mysterious connections to nature and discovers a plot to steal her gate key along with four other Elemental Fire talismans. If she can’t decipher her new talent to read people’s Heartfires and protect the talismans, her pathway home will be destroyed.

I snuck into the stone-walled room that Dad used as his home laboratory. He’d be pissed if he knew, but that’s what he got for leaving the key in plain sight.

My horse Vienna was totally nuts after the last blizzard. I was on the hunt for a way to shorten my stirrup leathers. I started riding three months ago, and my inherited saddle was made for someone much bigger than a thirteen-year-old with a marathon-runner’s butt.

Dad’s steel workbenches were bare. I rummaged through drawers filled with unrecognizable tools. Nothing looked sufficient to poke holes in leather, so I returned to the garage part of the old apple shed. Sifting through dusty piles of unfinished projects uncovered a large nail and hammer. Wouldn’t be pretty, but it’d get the job done.

As I raised the hammer, the shop door opened. A thin man wearing a ridiculous Futurama tee rushed through. Dad’s head above robot Bender’s body. Perfect.

“Dad? Where’d you come from? I was just in there.” Oops.

His brown eyes gawked at me from behind thick lenses.

“Brook, stay out of my shop. It’s locked for a reason. The equipment’s valuable, and my experiments are sensitive.” He stabbed a finger in my face with each word. “Just. Stay. Out.”

Seriously? He appears in a locked room, and I’m the one in trouble?

Dad walked out of the shed without waiting for an explanation or asking a single question about my day. I grabbed the saddle and stomped to the barn, my project forgotten.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #12

TITLE: Blame it on Meryl Streep

GENRE: Women's Fiction

At age 28 Laura Sanders has never been in a relationship and given up on love until she watches Mamma Mia and finds the perfect life-coach: Meryl Streep. With imaginary Meryl at her side Laura embarks on a journey to discover her own sexuality. Nobody but Laura can see and hear Meryl, but so what? Sometimes you have to lose yourself in a fantasy to fix your reality.

I’m Laura Sanders.

I’m twenty-eight.

I’m a TV producer in Los Angeles.

I’ve travelled the world.

I have a cat named Sartre.

I own 108 pair of shoes. 

I’m a virgin.

The worst part about my pathetic, lonely life is the constant pretending. Pretending to be normal. Everybody knows the drama of love, the passion, the pain, and not knowing makes you a complete freak. Until some years ago I used to be honest and tell friends that I never had a boyfriend, never had sex. Someday I’ll tell a stranger that I killed a person. Simply to see if that confession arouses a similar mortified look.

The look is usually followed by the insensitive comment: Why don’t you just pick up a guy at a bar? A woman can get laid even if she’s coyote ugly and you look cute. Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to get laid. I want to be loved.

Next is the sexist, but still popular, good advice:

Good Advice Number One: Be dumb. Men don’t like smart women.

Good Advice Number Two: Be hard to get. Men still think like hunters.

Good Advice Number Three: Be a listener. Men need attention.

Finally there’s the worst part: the awkward silence. After all, everything everybody talks about are relationships and to fit in you need stories to contribute. So I make up stories. Stories that cover up the fact that I’m an invisible woman, unable to catch a guy’s eye, let alone his heart.

Hangover Round 1 Entry #11

TITLE: Cassandra of the Crescent Moon
GENRE: MG Fantasy

When her grandmother is betrayed by a fellow witch and kidnapped by magic-hating vigilantes, twelve-year-old Cassie's only hope is a handful of witches sworn never to use their powers against others. Cassie must convince them to find the traitor and fight the enemy – with or without magic – to rescue the only family she has left.

The clouds were acting weird. Really weird.

When Cassie and her parents left the city the clouds had been normal: blobby shapes that, if you squinted just right, or turned your head a little, lazily morphed into a one-eared bunny or a lop-sided turtle. But now they were definitely misbehaving. Cassie didn't need to squint or tilt her head at all now. And there was nothing lazy about the way the clouds were moving. They were forming shapes, quickly and precisely, like a cartoon character blowing smoke rings. A crow. A bat. A coffin.

A skull.

“Mom, did you see that? There's a skull in the sky!”

In the front seat, Cassie's mom didn't even glance up from her laptop. “Uh-huh,” she replied.

“No, seriously, Mom, you have to look. It's weird. I think maybe it's a sign. Y'know, like something bad is going to happen at camp...”

“Nice try, Cassie,” her dad said. “But we're not turning back. You're going to camp.”

“But...but...would you at least look? There was a coffin, too, and other creepy stuff. I'm telling you, it's weird. It's gotta mean something.”

“Cassie, we've been over this. There's no such thing as signs,” Cassie's mom answered, still staring at the screen. “Clouds are just collections of water vapor and ice crystals - there's no deeper meaning involved. Enough of your nonsense. I really need to study these notes...”