Amelia Unabridged

by Ashley Schumacher

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For Edward. You’re simply the best.

  “What will we do?” Emmeline asked, watching as the storm clouds gathered into menacing darkness.

  “We’ll do the only thing we can,” Ainsley answered. “Endure.”

  prologue

  Everyone has a story about the first time they read the Orman Chronicles. This is mine.

  The day my father left us, it was sunny. I remember thinking it was odd, because in books tragedy always strikes during a storm, lightning and thunder magnifying the worst that could happen. But my father didn’t care about the perfect, cloudless sky, or how he was leaving with our only car, marooning us in our grief.

  Even then, I couldn’t help but imagine us on an island. The sofas in our small living room became piles of uneven sea stones. My father’s crossed arms and defiant stance became a crumbling, abandoned lighthouse that stood uncaring against the angry waves of my mother.

  Through the front window blinds, I could see his reason sitting in our peeling green van, a woman—girl—who wasn’t even ten years older than me. Her freshly twenty-one appeal was somewhat dulled by her habit of worriedly gnawing on her index finger as our eyes connected over the dashboard.

  I recognized her, I dimly realized. A cheerleader from the Saturday afternoon college football games my father had dragged me to for the past three months.

  I let the broken bit of blind fall back into place with a quiet shudder as my mother pleaded with Dad to stay. My stomach twisted into a hundred cruel shapes and my mind forgot all about the island, the lighthouse, everything.

  “For Amelia,” my mother begged, mascara dripping down her face in a way I thought only happened in movies. “You can’t leave her, Willy. She’s your daughter. Tell him, Amelia!” She roughly jerked me by the shoulder to face them. “Tell. Him.”

  I stared at them. Mom with her self-dyed red hair sticking up in all directions. Dad, trying to look stoic and resigned, his polo collar smudged from the self-tanner that had turned his pale skin orange.

  I turned back to the window.

  “Let him go,” I said. “What do I care?”

  I wasn’t sure if the ceramic pot holding the succulent I grew from a seed in elementary school fell when Mom whirled away from me, or if she knocked it off the table on purpose.

  When the green van finally barreled away, tires jumping over the cracked drive, my mother went to her bedroom and slammed the door. I stood there, listening to the kitchen faucet drip in tune with her sobs, before my feet carried me out the front door, down the driveway, and block after block, until I found myself in front of Downtown Books.

  I never came here unless I had a gift card. I couldn’t afford to pay the price on a book’s bar code, only on a yellowing discount sticker at a used bookstore. I spent my babysitting money on new school supplies and the occasional hot lunch, instead of my usual cheese and mustard sandwich, never on books from here.

  But, that day, I let myself stand there and gaze through the window for as long as I liked. I could stay all night, I thought, watching customers drift around the low shelves like sailboats bobbing on the horizon. I didn’t have to go home to a Dadless but Momful house, didn’t have to clean up the shattered pottery and succulent leaves still scattered across the floor.

  My reflection in the bookstore window looked haunted, my bright yellow Harry Potter shirt washing out my pale white skin and blue eyes. My long hair—caught somewhere between blonde and brown—wasn’t helping. I wondered if emotions could suck the color right out of you. I wondered if hatred and bewilderment could make you anemic.

  I don’t know how long I would have stood there, outside looking in, if not for Jenna Williams.

  The glass door to the bookstore wasn’t even fully open before she poked her head out and said, “You’re Amelia, right? You can’t just stand there. It’s creepy. What are you doing? Come inside if you want to look.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Even in my daze, part of me felt like I should be curtseying or something. Jenna Williams—reigning valedictorian from fifth grade onward, always impeccably dressed, the first of our grade to wear eyeliner, noted tennis enthusiast—was the closest thing to royalty in the freshman class, though she never held court. She had a few girls from the tennis club she hung out with, but nobody ever managed to get closer than arm’s length. It made her all the more appealing, really, than the girls that collected doting admirers and disciples. Jenna was less obtainable. She was never unfriendly, but she was a supernova in a galaxy of new stars and we all knew it, even the teachers.

  We had been classmates since kindergarten, but I was surprised she knew my name.

  Maybe it was because of the star thing, but I heard myself tell her, “My dad left today.”

  She sighed, berry lips bright against her suntanned skin, and said, “Like left left? That sucks. Do you want to talk about it?”

  I would have been less surprised if the stone lion sitting outside the fancy restaurant across the street had opened its massive jaws and made the same offer, but I managed to mumble, “No, thank you.”

  “Good,” Jenna said. “There are too many books and not enough time as it is.”

  “I don’t know,” I said again, nervous. If she was a star in the galaxy, I was one of those astronauts that gets disconnected from their ship and floats through space until they run out of oxygen.

  “There’s nothing in the world a good book can’t cure,” she said. “Come on, pick one or two. My treat.”

  And so, in the bright artificial light of the bookstore, we browsed side by side like this was how we spent every Friday evening. She wasn’t a supernova and I wasn’t a deserted daughter, and despite the part of my brain incessantly remembering my mother’s crying and the sound I imagined the cheerleader’s teeth made against the flesh of her finger, I was content. Or maybe resigned.

  When we brought my book and Jenna’s four to the register, the bookseller smiled at my choice, The Forest Between the Sea and the Sky, the first of the Orman Chronicles, by N. E. Endsley.

  “This book is so good,” she enthused. She had a pair of reading glasses on her nose and another pair forgotten atop her head. “The author isn’t much older than you, probably. Only sixteen or so. Ain’t that something? You’ll have to let me know what you think.”

  * * *

  I finished the book in one sitting, under the glowing bulb of Jenna’s crème-colored bedside lamp. I spent the night at her house, though it was less of an invite and more of an edict. When we left the bookstore, I was taken in the Williamses’ very nice car to their very nice house, and it was as if I had always been there and always would be.

  “Jenna never brings friends over,” her dad boomed cheerfully.

  It was a short drive from the store to their home, but long enough for Mrs. Williams to smile at me with her eyes in the rearview mirror.

  When I borrowed Jenna’s cel
l phone to call my mother and let her know where I was, she didn’t answer. I left the numbers for the Williamses’ house and Jenna’s cell and told her to call me back. She never did.

  I was worried she’d be furious when they dropped me off the next morning, but she was still in her room. If it weren’t for the acidic smell of microwave instant pasta, I wouldn’t have known she was even there.

  But Orman had already taken root in my heart and was under my arm, begging to be reread—begging me to forget the dripping faucet and empty driveway and football games and to run away to a world with problems much greater and more fantastical than my own.

  Come away, come away, it whispered.

  I went gladly.

  The story follows two sisters, Emmeline and Ainsley, as they discover a hidden realm, adjacent to our world, full of old prophecies and whispering forests. Emmeline has always been the quieter, meeker of the sisters, but when a drop of her blood soaks into the forest floor, the Old Laws bind her as ruler of the realm, making outgoing, take-charge Ainsley incredibly jealous.

  Things only get worse when Ainsley finds out that she, not Emmeline, is the ruler that has been foretold in Orman for centuries, and their rivalry rages, with an entire world hanging in the balance.

  But just as the tension between them is about to snap, they’re yanked back into the modern world, with televisions and air-conditioning and green vans that leave and never come back. The Old Laws, it turns out, do not take kindly to outsiders—even prophesied outsiders—staying in Orman forever.

  The story ends with Emmeline and Ainsley on the carpet of their bedroom floor, staring at each other in fury and confusion, not knowing why or how they have been exiled from Orman—or if they will ever return.

  * * *

  A few months later, on an uncharacteristically cold Texas night in December, I gave the book to Jenna. It was the same night she told me her parents had begun to make dinner reservations for four without thinking.

  “Welcome to the family,” she deadpanned, like it wasn’t the best thing in the world. “You, too, are now required to spend your free time sitting through Dad’s corny jokes and Mom’s complaints about work between bites of overly salted chips and salsa.”

  After my emotions quieted to somewhere between elation at being engulfed into a complete and whole family and despair that my own would not miss me, I took The Forest Between the Sea and the Sky from my backpack and set it on the pillow beside her.

  “Read this,” I said. “It’s perfect.”

  “Nothing’s perfect,” Jenna said.

  “This is.”

  Jenna stayed up reading long after I pretended to fall asleep. In the hazy quiet, I fretted that the book would not grip her like it had me, and then where would we be? Would she think it was too childish? Would she think I was too childish and not want to be friends anymore?

  But if there was someone I should have trusted, it was Jenna.

  “Ainsley,” she told me without preamble when I opened my eyes the next morning. “I side with Ainsley. You?”

  “Emmeline.” I smiled, sitting up in bed and picking a piece of flattened popcorn from last night’s movie marathon off my nightshirt. Jenna was already showered and dressed, her curly black hair tucked into a neat bun.

  “Are you saying that to be contrary or because you believe it?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s something Ainsley would say.”

  Together we spent the morning debating the finer points of Orman, forming theories about how the girls would find their way back—if ever—and speculating about book 2.

  Back then, we didn’t realize what the Orman Chronicles would become. We couldn’t have known, sitting cross-legged on Jenna’s unmade bed, that the book and its sequel would turn into major best sellers that got translated into more languages than I knew existed. Orman cultivated a fandom that ran like a twisting golden ribbon across oceans and races and religions, surprising critics, but never readers.

  Jenna was right: there is nothing in the world a good book can’t cure.

  And the Orman Chronicles?

  They’re the best kind of good.

  chapter one

  If my life were a book, I would start here, standing in front of the long row of check-in tables at the California Children’s Book Festival with something that feels very much like hope blooming in my chest.

  And if Jenna were the editor of my book—and she totally would be, because she’d want to make sure I got it right—she would disagree. She would say I should start from when we first met, or six days ago, when we graduated from Crescent High to tearful hugs from her parents and distant pats from my mother. But just this once I’ll ignore Jenna’s advice and start here, standing in the middle of the atrium, staring upward at the huge, colorful banner suspended above the check-in.

  There are at least a dozen author faces in neat, orderly rows, but it’s the center photo that makes my fingers tingle with excitement. The focal point—the largest photo of them all, and dead center—is N. E. Endsley, with his sharp cheekbones and dark, layered hair that is two steps of sophistication above boy band hair.

  It’s a testament to his writing skills that his first book sold so well without the inordinately attractive author photo on the back flap.

  “Author of the Orman Chronicles” is all it says beneath his unsmiling photo, but everyone knows the final book is coming. Those of us who paid a prince’s ransom—or whose best friend’s parents paid the ransom as a high school graduation gift—to be in the room for his special announcement are hoping to hear at least a release date and hopefully—squee!—a short excerpt.

  I have little time to be excited beyond the sharp pain of glee that makes me feel as if the world could never be this exciting again. It’s a kind of morose happiness that I squash down because Jenna has already stridden to one of the tables and is fetching our wristbands.

  “Jenna Williams,” she is saying to the blue polo behind the table when I near. “And Amelia Griffin. Both VIP passes with access to the N. E. Endsley session.”

  The man flips through a stapled stack of papers before giving each of us a wristband with VIP embossed along the thin rubber. I twist mine over my hand without looking, but Jenna holds hers up for examination.

  “This one has a nick in it,” she says. “May I have another?”

  The man seems confused for a split second too long—all I can see behind his eyes are endless file cabinets—so before Jenna can unleash her usual speech about presentation and quality, I work the band from my wrist and quickly swap it with her nicked one before she can argue.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I don’t care.”

  Jenna rolls her eyes and says, “You should,” but blessedly we walk away lecture-free and into the long rows of booths and tables stacked high with swag and books.

  * * *

  When the Williamses had asked us what we wanted for graduation, over dinner in late February, Jenna had barely looked up from her plate of enchiladas.

  “There’s a book festival the week after graduation,” she said. “It’s only a couple of days. We could fit it in before Ireland.”

  I had jerked my head toward her, surprised.

  “Have you been looking at my computer again? How did you know about the festival?”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “As if you’re the only one with an internet alert out for anything related to N. E. Endsley.”

  There was no doubt that she had chosen this for my benefit. Later, when she dropped me off at my house after a car ride full of my squeals about meeting N. E. Endsley, I leaned over to hug her good-bye and whispered, “You don’t like internet alerts.”

  “What?” Her voice was casual.

  “You don’t like internet alerts or subscription newsletters because they take up too much time and clutter your computer.”

  Jenna looked out the window to hide her smile. “When did I say that?”

  “You didn’t.” I grinned. “I just know. And wh
en did you look at my computer?”

  She turned to face me, indignant. “I’ve told you before you ought to lock it when you walk away from it in the library!”

  “Yeah,” I deadpanned. “Wouldn’t want the riffraff seeing my search history of book festivals and—”

  “And llama memes when you’re supposed to be studying?”

  “Don’t judge.” I shoved her shoulder and turned it into another awkward car hug. “Besides, if I hadn’t left it open, you would have asked for something sensible for graduation. Like textbook covers or … I don’t even know what, instead of the best, best, best thing on the planet.”

  “I don’t think textbook covers are a thing in college, Amelia.” Her voice was even, but I could feel her smile.

  “Whatever. You know what I mean.” My nose was lodged against her hair. She smelled like shampoo and her fruity, too-sweet perfume.

  “Thanks, Jenna,” I whispered, and found myself oddly choked up.

  “I’ll enjoy it, too, you know,” she whispered back. “But you’re welcome. Happy graduation. Is this hug over yet?”

  “Almost. Your perfume is trying to kill me.”

  * * *

  The same perfume brings me back to the festival, to the pulsing hustle of book lovers swarming around us, which is no match for my enthusiasm.

  “Look at it,” I urge Jenna, jogging alongside her fast walk to thrust my wrist in her face. “Look! This band means that, in only three hours, we get to see N. E. Endsley. Endsley, Jenna.”

  Jenna does not pause, unfazed by my attempts at distraction.

  “Amelia.” She says my name with a mix of exasperation and affection, but more of the latter than usual. “There are other events before his session, and we should enjoy some other panels and booths, too, okay?”

  “Whatever you say, JenJen.” I say the pet name her first and last boyfriend gave her under my breath, thinking she won’t hear it in the din.