by Carrie Jones
“Oh,” I lie, “probably at least two thousand dollars.”
Benji’s eyes light up.
I lay it on harder, like another layer of paint, making it thicker. “Maybe more.”
After dinner I’m in the upstairs bathroom wiping the paint thinner off my size 2 fan brush. There are still tiny flecks of yellow on the handle, but I’m okay with that. It makes it look well used. There’s the faintest sound of footsteps, like Benji’s slipping around or something.
Slowly, I put the brush down and peek out the open bathroom door into the hallway, clutching my paint scraper. There’s nothing there, of course.
My mom taught me a prayer when I was little. She made me swear to say it every night.
“It won’t get rid of the dreams, not completely, but it will help make them better,” she said. “It’s worked for others.”
O God, who made the heav’n and
earth, From dreams this night protect me.
Destroy each succubus at birth, No
incubus infect me.
I say it in bed, but it doesn’t keep the dreams from coming. In them, I’m trapped below water and something evil and bad is sucking my life away. It’s dark. The water weighs on me, heavier and heavier, and in the distance is a wicked, ghostly laugh and a wail that’s me screaming, screaming, screaming. Something reaches for me, lifting me up. At first it’s scary and furry and strong, all muscles and claws and it looks like a cougar, but then it changes into a guy, a huge guy. His dark eyes stare into mine, dark and frightened and wet, but strong somehow, too, determined.
“We have to save her,” he says.
“Who?” I ask him. “Who?”
He goes cougar again and snarls. He is all teeth and noise. I wake up cranky and scared because I know that someone is in danger, but I don’t know who or how to save them, just that I have to find out before it’s too late. Wow, I hate dreams.
Copyright © 2009 by Carrie Jones
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Electronic edition published in 2009
Published by Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s Books
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Carrie.
Need / Carrie Jones.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Depressed after the death of her stepfather, high school junior Zara goes to live with her grandmother in a small Maine town, where new friends tell Zara the strange man she keeps seeing may be a pixie king, and that only “were” creatures can stop him from taking souls.
ISBN: 978-1-59990-447-4 (ebook)
[1. Grief—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Pixies—Fiction. 4. Metamorphosis—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Maine—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.J6817Nee 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2008022353
