More Than Words

by Mia Sheridan

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Mia Sheridan

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes

  Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

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  Forever

  Hachette Book Group

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  First Edition: June 2018

  Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935572

  ISBN 978-1-5387-2739-3 (trade paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-5387-2738-6 (ebook)

  E3-20180425-DANF

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PART TWO CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  PART THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  Also by Mia Sheridan

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More Mia Sheridan

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to Judy,

  for helping me see the feathers.

  PROLOGUE

  Jessica—Eleven Years Old

  “The night was dark and…” I took a tentative step forward, the dry summer grass crunching softly beneath my feet. Stormy? No, it wasn’t even misty. I squinted at the pale sliver of moon overhead. It wasn’t even really dark yet, the evening sky just beginning to take on a deeper twilight blue. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, and then it grew quiet again, my footsteps echoing around me as if I were the only person alive in this strange, treacherous land. “Lonely,” I finally decided, whispering the word. I squared my shoulders, summoning courage. “The night was…dim and lonely, and yet the princess continued on her journey, believing with all her heart that the prince wasn’t far behind and that he’d rescue her. All she had to do was hold on to hope.”

  I kept walking, my breath hitching as my pulse sped up. I’d never walked this far from home before, and nothing looked familiar. Where am I? As the sky turned gray, lights suddenly blinked on up ahead, and I moved toward them as if they were a beacon, a guide. “The stars glittered in the sky, and the princess followed the brightest ones, sure they would lead her to safety and”—my stomach growled, louder than the soft rise and fall of the cricket song in the evening air—“food.”

  A slope stood between me and the glowing lights—what I could now see were streetlamps—and I began making my way up slowly. I clutched my book in one hand, using my other hand to balance myself on the steepest sections. “The princess was tired from her journey, and yet she gathered her strength and scaled the cliffs, knowing that she would be able to see where she was from higher ground. Perhaps she’d spot the prince, galloping toward her on his trusty steed.”

  The lights were very close, and when I reached the top of the incline and emerged through some bushes, I was standing in front of a set of train tracks. I let out a harsh exhale, looking one way and then the other, turning around to survey the land below. Looking down the slope in front me, I could just make out the edge of the golf course that backed up to a wide field. I sighed in relief now that I had my bearings. My house was in a neighborhood on the other side of the golf course. How could I have been so caught up in my own fantasy that I hadn’t realized how far I’d walked?

  I should head home now that I know which way to go.

  I stood for a moment looking in the direction of my house, hearing the echoes of my mother’s tears, my father’s annoyed voice, and the slamming door telling me my little brother had gone next door to spend the night at his friend Kyle’s house. I don’t want to be there. It’d be hours before they noticed I was gone anyway. If they noticed at all.

  I turned back toward the tracks. There was a lone boxcar sitting still and silent a short distance away, and I eyed it curiously, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, a strange fluttering in my chest. “The princess spotted the caves up ahead,” I murmured, “and was drawn to them for some reason she couldn’t explain.” Fate.

  I walked slowly through the gravel, stepping over the first set of tracks and moving toward the boxcar. The sound of the crickets from the field below grew faint, and the night seemed suddenly quieter and more still, as if the entire world were holding its breath. My heart began beating faster again in anticipation of…something. I touched the side of the boxcar, the metal cool and smooth beneath my fingertips as I trailed my hand along it, moving toward the wide blackness of the open door. My whisper was a bare breath of sound. “The caves were dark, and yet the princess was brave. She would stop here for a while and wait for the prince to catch up with her. He was very close now. She could feel it.”

  Pausing at the edge of the open door, I leaned my head slowly inside, my breath catching and my eyes widening. A boy sat leaning against the far wall, his long legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, his eyes shut. My heart galloped in my chest. Who is he? One of the streetlamps cast a glow into the shadowy interior, enough for me to see that the boy’s lip was bloody and his eye swollen. I stared, noting the way the boy’s dark hair fell over his forehead as if he were too exhausted to move it back. His face was bruised, his eyes shut, and I thought there might be tear tracks on his cheeks, and yet, even so, he was the handsomest boy I had ever seen in my whole life. He was a prince. A…broken prince. My mind spun. The princess thought she’d been waiting for the prince and yet…and yet, she’d had it all backward. The prince had survived battle and crawled to the dark cave nearby to hide, where he’d been waiting…to be rescued by her.

  The boy opened his eyes, which were shiny with tears. He started slightly as he spotted me, his hands curling into fists. But then he blinked the tears away, his brow furrowing and his hands relaxing as he sat up straight.

  I pulled myself into the boxcar and stood in front of him, my knees weak with the unexpectedness of finding h
im. “I’m here to save you,” I said in a rush of words.

  I felt the blush rising in my cheeks when I realized I’d said the words out loud. He didn’t know what I’d been playing, and I suddenly realized how strange and awkward I must seem. I’d been far too involved in my own made-up world. Although…clearly he did need saving. Maybe not by a pretend princess, but by someone anyway.

  The boy’s dark eyebrows rose as his gaze moved down my body and then back up to my face. He laughed a small laugh that ended in a sigh. “Oh yeah? Then I’m screwed,” he muttered.

  Well. I put my hands on my hips, the sympathy I’d felt a moment before turning into irritation. Maybe I was strange and awkward, but I didn’t deserve to be laughed at. “I’m stronger than I look,” I declared, drawing myself up to my full height. I was the fifth-tallest girl in my class.

  The boy smirked and ran a hand through his hair, moving it off his forehead. “I’m sure. What are you doing here? Don’t you know little girls shouldn’t be wandering around train tracks alone at night?”

  I stepped farther inside, looking around at the graffiti sprayed all over the walls. There were several pieces of writing on the wall nearest me, and I leaned in to read them. “Better not to read those,” the boy said. I turned to him questioningly. “Probably not for kids.” He raised an eyebrow. Probably? As if he hadn’t read them himself. Right.

  I cleared my throat, deciding to take his advice anyway. For now. I figured they must be dirty sayings. I’d come back another time and read them when I was alone. Maybe I’d memorize them, too, just because. “You don’t look that much older than I am,” I said. In truth, I couldn’t really tell. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a middle school kid, although there was something about his expression—or maybe his eyes—that made him seem older.

  “Yeah, well, I’m a guy, and I know how to protect myself.”

  I considered his bruised face, thinking there was at least one person he’d had some trouble protecting himself from. “Hmm. How old are you anyway?”

  He frowned at me for a moment, as if he wasn’t going to answer. “Twelve.”

  I smiled. “I’m eleven and a half. My name’s Jessica Creswell.” I kneeled and put my hands on my thighs.

  He studied me for a minute, as if he wasn’t sure what to think of me. I glanced away, biting my lip, feeling suddenly insecure. I knew I wasn’t the prettiest girl. My hair and eyes were both a plain, boring light brown, I had a scattering of freckles over my nose and cheeks that I’d tried to scrub away with lemon juice, which hadn’t worked, and I was pitifully skinny. The girls at my snobby French school never stopped reminding me how knobby my knees were or how the stupid cowlick at the front of my head had a mind of its own. I’d smoothed it down with my mom’s hair gel, but it had resisted, standing straight up in a stiff spike. Hopeless.

  “What are you doing here, Jessica Creswell?”

  I sat back on my butt, drawing my knees up in a more comfortable position, and leaned on the wall next to the one he was sitting against. “I sorta got lost. But now I know where I am. I know how to get back home.”

  “Then you should do that. Go home.”

  I pressed my lips together, frowning at the thought of home.

  The corners of his eyes tightened as he watched me, making me feel nervous again. “Don’t you like your home, Jessie?”

  Jessie. My heart fluttered at the sound of this handsome boy calling me by a nickname. No one had ever called me Jessie before. I liked it. “I…not really. My mom and dad fight a lot.” I wasn’t sure why I said it, especially to a stranger, but there was something dim and dreamy about the inside of the boxcar, something that felt unreal, as if my pretend game were coming to life around me in some small way. As if what was said here couldn’t go any farther.

  He sighed again, looking off behind me. “Yeah,” he said, as if he understood. I started to ask him if his mom and dad fought a lot, too, but he nodded to the book I’d placed next to me on the floor.

  “What’s that?”

  “King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table.”

  He tilted his head. “You like fairy tales, Jessie?”

  I nodded slowly. I thought about my parents, about how my mom was always dragging us to hotels and restaurants and to my dad’s office after hours, where we’d find him with his girlfriends. I thought about how my brother had been so young when we’d first started finding my father that Johnny’s eyes would always light up, and he’d say in this big, happy voice, “Hi, Daddy!” And our dad would cringe, the girlfriend of the moment would either seem to shrink or look shocked, and inside I would want to die of embarrassment. And then my mom would sob and throw a fit, and sometimes my daddy would come home with us, but mostly he would shut the door or drive away, or leave us standing there.

  Johnny was nine now and had enough sense to be as embarrassed as me when we found our dad with one of his girlfriends.

  My mom was always crying and wailing, and my dad was always making promises that nobody believed. Not even him, I thought. And Johnny and I just tried to disappear into the background.

  Fairy tales helped me believe that not every man was like my daddy. Fairy tales helped me disappear into worlds where princes were loyal and honest and where princesses were strong and brave.

  “Yes. Fairy tales, adventures. Someday I’m going to go on the grandest adventure of all—I’m going to live in Paris, have a French boyfriend who writes me the most beautiful love letters ever, and I’m going to eat French chocolate all day long.”

  “Sounds like you’ll be fat.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. If I want to be.”

  The boy chuckled softly, and butterflies fluttered in my tummy. He was even more handsome when he smiled. Although, really looking at him now, I saw that his clothes were worn, his sweatshirt a little too small, and the sole of one shoe was coming loose. He was obviously poor, and the knowledge made tenderness well up in my chest.

  “You didn’t tell me your name,” I said softly, scooting closer.

  He eyed me for a second but then shrugged. “Callen.”

  “Calvin?”

  “No, Callen. No v.”

  I repeated it, liking the way it sounded. “Callen.” I paused. “Did you get in a fight?” I asked, my eyes moving from his cut lip to his reddened eye.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’d you get in a fight with?”

  He looked away for a second and then back at me. “Just a bully.”

  I nodded slowly. “Oh. Well, I hope you can stay away from him from now on.”

  He let out a laugh that was mostly breath. “No, Jessie, I can’t stay away from this bully, but it’s okay. I don’t mind the bruises.”

  I frowned, not understanding how anyone could be okay with getting hit in the face. I opened my mouth to say something, when Callen reached forward and picked up my book, looking at the picture on the front cover. He turned it over and began reading the synopsis on the back. “You read French?” I asked, surprised.

  His eyes flew to mine, and his expression did something funny. “No. I was wondering what language this is.”

  I nodded, scooting even closer, leaning my back against the same wall as him. “Want me to read it to you? I can translate. I go to a French school, and we’re only supposed to read books in French.”

  “A French school?”

  I nodded. “Every subject is taught in French. It helps kids become fluent.”

  “Huh,” he said, tilting his head, studying me. “So you can eventually move to Paris and get fat.”

  I grinned. “Yup.”

  He smiled back, causing those butterflies to take flight again. “Sure, Princess Jessie. Read to me.”

  * * *

  I walked through the neighborhoods, across the golf course and the field, and up the embankment to the train tracks every day that summer.

  When Callen was there, I would read to him, or we would go on adventures together. He acted as if he were only doing it for
my benefit, but he smiled more than usual when we were traveling into volcanoes in the Realm of the Merciless Vales or picking magical herbs in the Ever Fields.

  “I don’t want you staying here by yourself, Jessie,” he said one afternoon when I told him I’d been there alone the day before. “You never know who else might be hanging around the train tracks.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone here except you.”

  “Yeah, well”—he glanced down the tracks to a turn, where the rails disappeared behind a grove of trees—“the people who hang around the railroad tracks usually stay half a mile that way because the old train cars are hidden by the trees and brush, but you never know.”

  He was a head taller than I was when we were standing, and I peered up at him, noticing the bruise under his jaw. “But how will I know when you’re going to be here?”

  He put his hands in his pockets and turned to me. “I’m not really someone you should be hanging around, either.”

  My heart dropped, and I was suddenly scared he was going to send me away, tell me he didn’t want to meet me there anymore. “You’re wrong,” I insisted. “You’re the most wonderful person I ever met.”

  “Jessie.” It was more breath than word, though I was sure I’d heard my name on his soft exhale. He met my eyes and smiled at me, softly, sweetly, and he suddenly looked younger than he was. He sighed, looking off into the distance. Maybe toward where he lived, though I couldn’t be sure. Whatever he saw in his mind’s eye made his smile slip. When his eyes moved back to mine, he asked, “Can you meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven o’clock?”

  That was after dinner, when my dad left for an “unexpected” business meeting that we all knew was really some woman waiting in a hotel room for him and my mom opened a bottle of wine and cried now that we were too old to be dragged all over town without putting up a fight. “Yes, I can meet you then. And Saturdays at three?”

  He was quiet for a moment, and then he gave me a crooked smile that made my heart do a somersault. “And Saturdays at three.”