Alright, alright. I've been holding this one a little closer to the vest, but who am I if not an insufferable oversharer? I am excited to share a preview of my forthcoming middle-grade folk horror, THE EIGHT WINTERS OF ADRIA. This is the first in a planned 4-book series, and I am SO proud of this project. It is, without a doubt, The Best Thing I Have Ever Written. I sincerely hope you enjoy, whether you're 9 or 99 years old.
As usual, the pitch:
THE EIGHT WINTERS OF ADRIA, pitched as Spirited Away meets Avatar: The Last Airbender; Adria washed up on the shore of a river in a haunted forest with no memory of her life. She’s spent the last eight winters with a wise grizzly bear who kept her safe in exchange for her healing powers—a gift that comes in handy with the demon, Two Face and his Children on the loose. When a human boy washes up on shore, she is determined to help him find his way home, but that will mean facing the demon of the forest, and he only hungers for one thing: her.
THE PRISONER
In the beginning of time, the human world and the spirit world were separated only by a thin veil. It is what Tauro, the god of Balance, thought was best. However, the humans took advantage of this access to the spirits, as they always do. It started with greed. At first, the humans and spirits lived peacefully, in balance. The spirits would give, and the humans would offer something in return. But eventually, the humans started using the spirits’ gifts for evil. And so to separate our worlds, Tauro created The Forest. No, it’s not just any forest. It is a home for the spirits who maintain Tauro’s Balance. Spirits like the denori, who care for the trees as if they are siblings. Spirits of life and death. Spirits of Change, of which there are five. The owl, for the winter solstice, the dog, for the summer, the magpie, for the fall, and for the spring, the bear. They create the seasons, and they are the pillars of Tauro’s Balance. They all live in The Forest, and now, it is the veil. And it is my home.
Or it was, until I was captured.
“Who are you, and why were you captured?” you may ask. It is not important who I am.
And so, for now, I will not tell you.
The forest shows itself only to those who are worthy. Which means most humans will never see it.
However, I would like you to meet a human girl who just so happens to live there. Pay close attention. There is more to her than meets the eye, and The Forest is full of secrets. You must only keep quiet, and you will hear it whispering.
1: the boy
I used to track the sunsets on a notched piece of driftwood by the mouth of the river, but I lost count ages ago. Now, my time is tracked by winters. They are much easier to count because it’s hard to forget a winter when they are so hard to live through. I have been here for at least eight, and that is all I really know. It was summer when I washed up on the riverbank.
That was a lucky thing.
If I’d arrived in the winter, the bears would have been deep underground. The bear I call Tiamet never would’ve found me, and the Two-Face would have eaten me.
I don’t often think about that day, but today, the sky looks the same and reminds me of it.
I have been with Tiamet almost every day I have spent in the forest. Now, it is me, and Tiamet, and her two cubs, Roshka and Soska, who are just old enough to get into mischief.
The bears and I are in our favorite resting place just past the south bend of the river. It’s quiet here. Downstream from where the wolves claimed territory in the shadow of the North Mountain. Yesterday, I collected dead ferns during our travels. Today, I rest my head on them. The cubs don’t mind laying on the pebbled beach, especially if it means we are safe from the Two-Face and his servants, the Children.
The Two-Face has haunted these trees as long as I’ve been here. The bears knew about him long before I arrived. He is as sure as gravity. As certain as the night. He is just as much a part of this forest as the river, which is the only thing that can protect us from him. The river makes us safe.
Me and the river together.
When I first arrived, I didn’t know the forest was special. It isn’t just a home for animals like the bears, the deer, and the foxes. It’s home to the spirits, too. They aren’t good or bad. They live to serve the trees, and that is all.
But Two-Face is not like the others.
Sometimes, I wonder if he was like them once and something horrible happened to him. But it does not matter. That’s what Tiamet would say if she could talk. If the spirits are part of the forest like a hand or a foot, Two-Face is like…a mass. He feeds on the healthy forest, and overtime, his infection has spread. I have to admit I have come to fear the Two-Face more than anything. I am afraid his darkness will one day consume every tree and eventually destroy the river. But I try not to dwell on thoughts of the Two-Face.
I return my gaze starward, as if finding shapes in the clouds will banish my fears entirely. Here, by the river, the trees open up to the sky. Today, it is the perfect shade of blue. The fragrant pines are so tall they kiss the fluffy white clouds. A mountain range cups the forest in its hands like a god. It dwarfs even the tallest redwoods, and reminds us that we are small and insignificant.
The sun kisses my cheeks, forehead, nose, and eyelids with the warm embrace of a mother. I press my face against Tiamet’s fur. She groans, a sign she’s about to get up. I lift off her and stretch my arms. The cubs are asleep close to the treeline. It’s like any other day—calm, and so still it almost scares me. A gust whistles through the trees and my eyes dart to the forest. I cannot help it. I spent too long thinking of Two-Face, and it has set me on-edge.
Tiamet doesn’t share my fear. As she expects, nothing is in the trees. She shakes her head, as if to mock me, and makes her way to the river, stirring up the fish with her paw. She flicks her right ear, the tattered one, as a trout darts away from her lethal claws.
My braid was defiled during my nap, so I untangle it. I comb my fingers through my long brown hair and plait it again. I sigh, pulling my knees under my chin. Instinctively, my fingers find the short beaded necklace that hangs from my neck. It’s the only proof, aside from the long tunic I awoke in, that I once existed outside the forest. The only proof that I came from somewhere. That I did not just appear out of thin air. Maybe even proof that someone is looking for me. Someone who loves me. A familiar, sad feeling pings in my chest like a tiny pebble falling into a cavern.
As I twist a wooden bead between my thumb and forefinger, I can’t help the feeling of being watched. I am usually being watched. If not by Tiamet, by the cubs. When the cubs get big and go away, the deer watch us. Even when we can’t see them, I almost always feel the pull of their eyes against my back. But I don’t mind that so much.
Even the denori, little spirits of the trees, don’t bother me. They are always there, clacking among the branches like wooden windchimes. Tiamet ignores them. She doesn’t like when I look at them, but sometimes I do anyway. The eyes I feel now aren’t like a deer or denori, or even the wolves, who are careful to avoid us.
I can’t pull my gaze from the trees, and today, Tiamet is wrong.
We are not safe at all.
A mossball rises in my throat as I anxiously search the treeline, my heartbeat pulsing through my blood. The underbrush rustles. The cubs’ heads shoot up. The boy, Roshka, lopes toward me. His pupils are blown wide with fear, and he’s wailing. That gets Tiamet’s attention, but it is too late for the female, Soska, who is closest to the trees. A long, jet-black arm reaches out of the brush and a human-shaped hand claws at Soska’s flanks, immediately drawing blood. The hand is shaped like a human hand, but it is not a human. It is one of Two-Face’s Children.
Though I am afraid, I must do what I’ve learned. I stand, grabbing a handful of rocks and dash across the uneven shore. My fearful pulse beats through my feet, but I run toward the danger anyway.
Tiamet’s voice echoes off the cliff on the other side of the river as she lopes toward Soska. A slick black figure shaped like my shadow stands over the cub. Invisible beetles crawl up my skin. I’ve always hated that Two-Face and his children were shaped like me—that I’m shaped like a human. The Child has Soska in its long, sharp fingers. Tears burn in my eyes, but I am more angry than afraid.
“Let her go!” I scream. My voice rips up my throat like rocks.
Tiamet jumps, digging her claws into the Child. The creature lurches back, cutting Soska as it drops her into the rocky bedding.
I step over the cub and hurdle my rocks at the demon as Tiamet tries to take it down. Two-Face’s Children are blacker than crows; even the light cannot find them. They are like rips in the air, like voids. I keep throwing my rocks until the Child collapses, and Tiamet jams her paw into its chest. The creature’s scream is so sharp and loud I have to cover my ears. Tiamet pounds with both feet until the Child breaks apart into a splattering of inky blots in the dirt. It sinks into the soil, bubbling up. The sound of its screams echoes into the trees, scaring a group of magpies out of the canopy. The denori click and clack, but I try not to listen to them.
“Something new in the current,” a voice says. It’s so quiet, I’m not sure I really heard it.
Nothing here speaks.
I must be losing my mind.
I press my palms into my ears. Tiamet scratches the dirt until the blot resurfaces, trying to reform into the shape of the Child. When it does, she aims better.
You have to aim for the middle.
If you miss, the Child just sinks into the dirt.
Tiamet doesn’t miss this time. She pounds on it. A sharp, loud noise pierces through the air, and the Child’s middle explodes, popping like a bubble. But the creature isn’t dead. In a few seconds, it reassembles itself, but now it is tiny. It cries and scurries back into the cover of the forest, dragging itself only by its arms.
Soska lays limp by the river with a deep gash in her neck. Roshka is smelling her. Her tawny fur is slick and blackened with blood. I want to cry, but now is not the time. It’s time to be brave. The river and I can fix her.
I take her front paws and drag her into the water. I carry her in until my feet can barely touch the slick riverbed. Her breath rattles between pained whimpers as I wrap my arms and legs around her like a cocoon. I hold her tightly, because she’s kicking and crying to get away. I gather a handful of mud from the riverbank into my hand. The river stops flowing and the denori’s whispers turn into rowdy whistles. The water must be still when I heal, because like the trees, it whispers. The river’s whispers are different, though. They are how I connect with it. I listen to them, and then I can see them. As long as they are still.
I move the mud around in my palm for a moment, forming it into a ball and flattening it in my hand. The denoris’ excitement falls into tense silence as they approach the riverbank, their little bodies pressed together. The tiny branches that grow from their skulls rattle as they scrape against the branches of the next. Tiamet backs away from them with a grunt and Roshka follows.
The denori lean toward the water as they watch. Even the trees lean toward me.
I nod, take a deep breath, and slide the mud into the gash on Soska’s throat. Her deafening scream fills the cloudless sky like a clap of thunder. I quickly clamp her muzzle closed, pull her close and dunk us both underwater, sinking toward the riverbed.
I blow into her face. Bubbles rush from my lips, surrounding Soska like ants over an old piece of fruit. She struggles at first, but eventually, she’s too tired to fight. Her muscles fall limp. The fizz dies away and a single bubble slips out of her nostril. The whispers are not as loud now, but I can hear them much more clearly.
My eyes dart around the riverbed as a silver salmon wriggles past us. Just behind him, I single out one of the whispers. It’s clear and kind of looks like a little worm. I can only see it because a ray of sunlight reflects off the edges of the shape. I capture it in my hand like a butterfly and shove it into the mud I packed Soska’s gash with.
I take her into my arms again and swim us both above the surface. I can already hear the denori cheering before my ears have readjusted to the air. I release Soska and she paddles to the shore of the river, headed straight for Roshka. Though still visibly shaken from the attack, Soska walks as if she was never injured at all.
I smile, fighting back the dizzy spell that always comes after I use my powers.
Soska and Roska push their faces against each other, chattering with happiness and relief.
The denori beetle back to the trees. Tiamet is pleased to see them gone. She watches the cubs for a moment before dipping a paw into the water with me. She leans toward me, bestowing me with her thanks. It comes in the form of her warm breath sweeping across the bridge of my nose. I rest my hand on her cheek before she moves back toward the trees.
It’s time to find the salmon upstream. Water drips from my long tunic and the ends of my hair as I step out of the river. As soon as I touch land, it starts flowing again.
Tia dips her head. An invitation for me to climb on her back.
Healing makes me quite ill, and my head is already cluttered with bee stings. I ignore the dull pain in my hip as I whip my leg over her spine. Tiamet doesn’t bother telling the cubs we’re leaving. They are old enough to pay attention on their own. I’m tempted to call them, but I am too tired. I fall asleep with my face buried in a bed of golden fur.
Screaming rapids startle me awake. I sit up quickly. Why did Tiamet choose this part of the river? The rapids are too fast for the cubs to learn here, and she intends to teach them to fish today. But Tiamet is rigid, and the cubs hide behind her. I fight through a mind mussed from sleep to trace her gaze. There’s something caught on the rapid, but it’s not a fish.
As start to climb off her back, Tiamet growls at me.
“Tia,” I whisper in a quick breath. It’s rare that she scolds me, and when she does, it stings in my chest.
A quieter growl rumbles in her ribcage as I slide down her side and plant my feet on the ground, slowly approaching the river. Roshka takes a creeping step to follow me, but Tiamet’s warning bounces off the cliffside, shaking my bones. I ignore it, but Roshka cannot. He steps back three paces and hides in his mother’s shadow.
Crisp mist flies away from the rapid, cooling my cheeks as I approach. Like always, when my skin touches it, the water stops. No matter how fast it is moving. The river stops for me, always.
What’s left draped across the jagged black rock is something I thought I would never see again:
Another human.
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