Rebel
Page 45
Summer was wearing green.
Alarm tingled through Ross’s nerves. Of course something had gone wrong. Of course the peace and fun of this evening had been too good to be true. He rushed into the gathering crowd, ignoring the press of bodies around him as he searched for his sister.
Mia followed him, catching his hand. “It’s okay. Look.”
Ross broke through the crowd. In the center of an open space, Summer twirled and leaped, almost too light and graceful to be real. Everyone was watching her with awe, even the Catalina Players. But Summer seemed unaware of the crowd. Her eyes were half shut, one hand open, sometimes reaching, sometimes clasping air, as if she danced with an invisible partner.
She is, he realized. He knew without asking that she was dancing with Spring, if only in her mind.
It wasn’t only a beautiful dance, it was about love. He could feel it, and others could, too. He saw it in clasped hands, and bright eyes, and soft smiles. Spring was gone, but Summer’s love for her endured.
Ross felt a warm presence on his other side. Jennie had followed him, too. Ross held the girls’ hands, and watched his sister twirl and leap, then land as soft as snow.
Copyright & Credits
Rebel
The Change, Book Three
Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Book View Café Edition May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61138-567-0
Copyright © 2017 Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Cover Designer: Cormar Covers
Production Team:
Cover Design: Cormar Covers
Copy Editor: James Hetley
Proofreader: Deborah Ross
Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital edition: 20170516vnm
www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624
About the Authors
Sherwood Smith writes SF, Fantasy, and historical romance.
Rachel Manija Brown is the author of all sorts of stories in all sorts of genres. She has also written novels, poetry, nonfiction, television, plays, video games, and comic books. In her other identity, she is a therapist who treats people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
About Book View Café
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative is an author-owned cooperative of over fifty professional writers, publishing in a variety of genres including fantasy, romance, mystery, and science fiction.
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HOSTAGE
The Change Book Two
Sample Chapter
Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Edition
January 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-471-0
Copyright © 2015 Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Judith Tarr, whose Lipizzan Horse Camp for writers inspired us in so many ways.
Chapter One: Las Anclas
Ross
Ross Juarez bolted out of bed.
His feet skidded, and he crashed into the wall. The pain came as a relief. The wall was solid. Real.
He pressed his palms against the cool plaster. He was in his bedroom, on his feet. Not writhing on the blood-soaked dirt beneath a chiming crystal tree.
The room seemed small, the walls close. He tried to focus on the stars overhead, but instead he saw the flaws and bubbles in the glass ceiling. If it fell in, it would shatter into a thousand crystalline shards.
Ross fled the house, nearly tripping over the tabby cat on the landing. He bolted across the street, and fetched up in Mia’s yard.
He leaned against a barrel, shoved his sweaty hair out of his eyes, and gazed at the comforting golden glow of her windows. Mia was awake, and happily at work. Seeing her would make him feel better. But if he went in, she’d be upset because she couldn’t fix his nightmares.
Ross was the only one who could.
When the blood-red singing tree had first invaded his mind in dreams, he’d had to visit it in person to establish his side of their mental link, so he could communicate with it, then learn how to shut it out.
But after the battle against King Voske’s army two months ago, he had again begun dreaming of the soft pop of exploding seed-pods, of shards piercing his skin, of barely noticeable pain becoming unbearable agony as tiny needles grew into razor-edged knives and branched through his body. And always, as he lay dying, he looked up at leaves like knives and branches like swords, glittering in the moonlight and black as coal.
The scarlet tree that had grown from his blood contained his own memories, but those dark trees had grown from the bodies of Voske’s soldiers, who’d worn night-black camouflage – soldiers whom he’d used his own tree to kill. Ever since, the obsidian trees had forced their way into Ross’s dreams to share the memories of the agonizing deaths they’d been born from.
The worst part wasn’t the pain. It was waking up, and remembering his guilt.
Ross couldn’t go on like this. He had to face those singing trees.
He pushed himself away from the barrel. Confronting the trees would be risky, but at least he’d be awake, not dreaming and helpless.
Out of habit, he headed toward the town hall, with its secret tunnel that led to the mill at the juncture of two city walls. But after the battle, sentries had been posted at the mill, along with extra guards along the walls. He needed a different route.
Ross hurried through the sleeping town until he came to the Vardams’ orchard. He could use the fruit trees as cover, then climb over the wall in the time it took the sentries, who always looked outward, to make their fifty steps in the other direction.
He hooked his good hand around a branch and pulled himself into an apple tree. A mother raccoon hissed from a neighboring bough, then scampered across a swinging vine bridge into another tree, followed by her litter of kits. The raccoon family vanished into an elaborate two-story home of hardened mud and fallen branches.
The hot Santa Ana wind whipped stinging dust into his face. He smothered a sneeze, then checked the sentries, who did not miss a step. The rustling leaves had covered the sound.
When the sentries passed, he wedged his fingers and toes into hollows in the wall. Halfway up, he grabbed a slippery knob of stone, and set his foot onto an adobe outcropping. It broke off under his foot. Ross slid. He caught himself painfully, scrabbled for a new foothold, then inched upward until he could haul himself over the top.
He dashed into the cornfield, then crouched to catch his breath. An opossum hurried past, an ear of blue corn in its jaws.
Ross forced himself to move. He sensed his own singing tree; its chimes called to him in his mi
nd. But he had only sight to guide him through the abandoned cornfields. Now that the area had been declared off-limits, tall weeds grew in the cracked earth and tumbleweeds rolled everywhere.
Soon he saw the jagged black fingers rising above the corn stalks, blotting out the stars. Globes of dark glass hung from faceted branches. Just one crystal shard had cost him much of the use of his left hand, and each seed-pod contained hundreds of them.
He was well out of range of the black trees. Still, he didn’t feel safe. Crystal leaves should have clashed together, ringing out a threat, but the trees were silent. It was as if they wanted him to come closer.
Closing his eyes, he visualized a concrete wall with a small steel door. The door led to his own tree in the center of the obsidian grove. Ross opened the door a crack. His tree glowed a deep ruby red, an ember within coals. He gave the mental door the smallest of pushes, and—
Glass shattered and popped as every seed-pod in the black grove exploded. Needles of pain stung Ross’s face, his throat, his bare hands. He’d missed one of those black trees in the dark night!
He grabbed his belt knife, knowing he could never cut all the shards out of his flesh before they took root . . .
Ross forced his eyes open and unclenched his fingers. There was blood on his hand, but only from where he’d scraped it against the wall. The left was unmarked.
He slammed the door in his mind. The pain vanished.
Ross bolted back to the wall, checked for sentries, and climbed as fast as he could. He caught his breath in a tree laden with pomegranates the size of crystalline seed-pods. They tossed in the wind, and one bumped against his shoulder. Ross jerked away, then fled the orchard. He didn’t slow until he reached Mia’s cottage, his footsteps heavy.
Before he could knock, the door popped open. “Ross! I heard you coming.”
As he stepped inside, Mia adjusted a blanket she’d flung over a corner of her worktable. Sometimes she didn’t like people seeing her projects until they were done.
After Ross had nearly died in the battle, Mia’s father, Dr. Lee, had ordered him not to do anything strenuous, so he’d been assigned to assist Mia with engineering projects and mechanical repairs. He and Mia quickly discovered that they had to divide their working space, or he could never find his tools and she got annoyed at him for rearranging hers. His side of the table was neatly organized, hers a chaos only she could understand.
Mia’s shiny black hair swung tousled against her cheek. Her glasses slid down her nose, which was smudged with the blue paint that also marked her fingers. She absently shoved her glasses back up, leaving another blue streak. Though his knees were watery and his throat dry from his run, he couldn’t help smiling at how cute she was.
She didn’t smile back. “You went outside the walls, didn’t you? Ross, you promised not to go there alone.”
“I had to go over the wall, and it’s a tough climb. With one hand, I couldn’t have helped you.”
Mia shot a glance at the lump hiding under the blanket. Then she folded her arms. “I’ll make a grappling hook for myself. For next time. If there’s a next time. How did it go?”
It would only upset her if he told her how the trees had nearly tricked him into cutting into his own flesh. Just thinking about it was making his heart race. “It was fine.”
“It was fine? You don’t look like it was fine. It was horrible! Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Ross admitted. “But in kind of an interesting way. They knew exactly how to scare me.”
Mia grabbed his sleeve, her eyes flashing wide. “So you could communicate with them?”
“Well, they were definitely communicating with me.” He breathed out. In. “Let me see if I got through to them.”
Ross took another deep breath, bracing himself for an onslaught of pain and fear and nightmare images. He wished he could hold on to Mia, but, well, why shouldn’t he? She already knew he was afraid, and it didn’t make her think any less of him.
“Do you mind?” Ross beckoned to her.
She didn’t hesitate a heartbeat—she came straight to him, her steady brown gaze so trusting. He put his arms around her and bent to rest his cheek against her silky hair. No matter how often they touched, the first contact always came as a shock. But he’d gotten to like that shock.
He tightened his arms, holding Mia close, shut his eyes, and stepped into the world inside his mind. There was his wall of concrete, and there was his door of polished steel. Cracks widened around the door, and dust sifted down.
But Ross could feel Mia in his arms, warm and breathing, and that gave him strength and confidence. He visualized the cracks filled in with fresh cement, made it harden in the blink of an eye, and kicked the wall to be sure. There was no response from the trees.
He opened his eyes. “Yeah. I think I can keep them out now.”
“Great!” Mia squeaked, backing up a step so she could see his face.
Ross enjoyed her enthusiasm. The lingering terror faded enough for him to say, “I was thinking. Since I could talk to those trees, I should be able to talk to others.”
“Really?”
“And the singing trees around the ruined city don’t have any reason to hate me. I might be able to get past them to go prospecting there.”
She bounced on her toes. “That’s fantastic! I’ve wanted to get in there ever since I was a little girl. Could you take me?”
His fear flooded back. “No!” It came out more harsh than he’d intended. Mia stopped bouncing and looked hurt. He tried to speak gently. “I’ve always prospected alone.”
“You’ve been taking Yuki prospecting for months now,” Mia pointed out.
“I’ve been teaching him to prospect.” Ross took Mia’s hand. Again, the shock made his heart stutter and his breath catch. “I might be able to get past the crystal trees, but I don’t know if I could protect another person.”
“Your ruby tree didn’t hurt me.”
“Yeah, but that one’s part of me. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t know what the other singing trees will be like.”
Mia squeezed his hand. “If you go alone, who’s going to protect you?”
Ross hadn’t had anyone to care for, or who’d cared for him, since his grandmother had died when he was eight.
Then he’d come to Las Anclas.
Mia had saved his life during the battle. Some townspeople said she had brought him back from the dead, though she and Dr. Lee had assured him that he’d only stopped breathing for a minute or so. He knew how much she cared about him. But like the touch of her skin against his, every new reminder came as a surprise.
He trusted her, and he trusted himself to guard her with his life. What he wasn’t sure he could trust was his own strange power.
Mia was looking at him expectantly.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
It didn’t sound like much to him, but it seemed to satisfy her. She linked her fingers around the back of his head, and pulled him down for a kiss.
Authors’ Note
We hope you have enjoyed this sample of Hostage. It is the second in The Change Quartet. In order, the books are Stranger, Hostage, Rebel, and Traitor. If you’d like to be alerted by email when new books in the series are released, please click here to be added to the mailing list.
Please consider writing a review of this book. We appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.
Hostage at Book View Café Ebookstore
Copyright & Credits
Hostage
The Change Book Two
Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Book View Café January 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-471-0
Copyright © 2015 Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Production Team:
Cover Design: Cormar Covers
Copy Editor: Judith Tarr
Proofreader: Judith Tarr
Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This is a work of fictio
n. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital edition: 20141214Dvnm
www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624
Table of Contents
Title Page
Authors’ Note
Chapter One: Ross
Chapter Two: Jennie
Chapter Three: Felicité
Chapter Four: Kerry
Chapter Five: Ross
Chapter Six: Mia
Chapter Seven: Ross
Chapter Eight: Becky
Chapter Nine: Mia
Chapter Ten: Ross
Chapter Eleven: Jennie
Chapter Twelve: Ross
Chapter Thirteen: Felicité
Chapter Fourteen: Becky
Chapter Fifteen: Mia
Chapter Sixteen: Kerry
Chapter Seventeen: Ross
Chapter Eighteen: Becky
Chapter Nineteen: Felicité
Chapter Twenty: Jennie
Chapter Twenty-One: Becky
Chapter Twenty-Two: Ross
Chapter Twenty-Three: Kerry
Chapter Twenty-Four: Mia
Chapter Twenty-Five: Jennie
Chapter Twenty-Six: Becky
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ross
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Kerry
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Becky
Chapter Thirty: Felicité
Chapter Thirty-One: Becky
Chapter Thirty-Two: Mia
Chapter Thirty-Three: Felicité
Chapter Thirty-Four: Kerry
Chapter Thirty-Five: Jennie
Chapter Thirty-Six: Becky