Read Praefatio: A Novel Online
Authors: Georgia McBride
Tags: #1. Young adult. 2. Fiction. 3. Paranormal. 4. Angels. 5. Demons. 6. Romance. 7. Georgia McBride. 8. Month9Books
Praefatio: A Novel (37 page)
I got up, threw out my uneaten food, and huffed to my room. She didn’t even say goodbye.
I found a note on my bed when I entered the room.
Dear Grace,
Sorry I had to leave you here by yourself. I’ll try to write when I can. I’ll miss you. Finally found someone like me. Finally found someone who believes. You’ll be free soon too. Don’t worry. They’re coming for you.
Love,
Wanda
Reallyfriggingnuts.
I clutched the letter and cried myself into a restless sleep.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound brought me out of the nightmare that held me in its grip, and I screamed upon awaking. The person on the other side of the door knocked again.
I jumped up to open the door.
“Miss Miller. I am Dr.
Katz.
Dr
. Rosa
Katz from the Missouri State Board. It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she said, extending her hand as she greeted me with an enormously bright smile.
She looked familiar, but I could not place her.
“I’ll be conducting an evaluation to determine how long you need to be treated at this facility.” She stepped into the room.
I wasn’t in the mood for more poking and prodding. I put my hand out to stop her from entering the room, catching her outstretched arm in the process. The room began to spin.
I stepped back, nearly falling. She lurched forward to catch me as I was about to faint.
“It’s okay, Grace. Mama’s here now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I didn’t hear anything after that.
THE END
A Letter from Georgia McBride
Thank you for reading Praefatio, my very first novel, originally written in 2007. It is a story most dear to my heart, written at all hours of the night and day, under grave concern for my health as Grace, Remi, and Gavin relentlessly poured their stories into me. But a lot has changed since I first met Grace, alone and afraid in the woods with no memory of how she got there. In the six years it has taken this story to find its way into your hands, I started a literary non-profit organization, acquired two wonderful literary agents, wrote two more novels, a short story, and three poems, and started my own publishing company, which now has two distinct imprints. I also acquired five dogs, two birds, and two aquatic frogs. The first bird passed away as a result of a horrible cage accident, one dog died on the kitchen floor without warning after a year of living with us, and we lost both frogs to old age. The road to publication is never without forks or potholes. Keeping one’s sanity, self-esteem, and motivation intact when those in the know tell you that you do not have a story that will appeal to readers because there are too many other stories like it can wear on one’s soul. I have been lucky to have wonderful support along the way. Below is a list of people without whom I could not have made it to this point.
Ezmirelda Demetri: Thank you for being the first reader to tell me how much you loved this story!
Mark McVeigh and Tamar Rydzinski: Thank you for believing in my worth as a writer. Thank you from my heart to Michelle Zink, Jennifer Million, Olivia Banyon, Karen Mazzara, Jonathan Maberry, Nancy Holder, Amy King, Claudia Gray, Kelly Starling-Lyons, Alyson Noel, Tonya Hurley, Laura Renegar, Karen Mahoney, and Cynthia Letich Smith. I hold you all warmly in my heart. Finally to Courtney Koschel, Rachel Bateman, Hallie Tibbetts, Cameron Yeagar, Linda Covella and the rest of the Month9Books team: Thank you.
Georgia McBride
Georgia loves a good story. Whether it’s writing her own, or publishing someone else’s, story is at the heart of everything Georgia does. Founder of Month9Books, YALITCHAT.ORG and the weekly #yalitchat on Twitter, Georgia spends most of her days writing, editing, or talking about books. That is, of course, when she is not listening to music, reading or watching her favorite shows. She lives in North Carolina with four dogs, a frog, a parrot, 2 kids, parents, and a husband.
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Scion of the Sun
Available in print and eBook from Month9Books in
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And now, a sample from USA Today bestselling author Nicola Marsh’s SCION OF THE SUN, coming from Month9Books in November 2013!
Chapter One
I always thought cults were for crazies.
Until I joined one.
Though, let me clear up any misconceptions. I’m not crazy. A freak maybe, but not crazy. Which is why I’m here. Freaks R Us. A “boarding school for the intellectually gifted” tucked away in the back streets of Wolfebane, New Hampshire.
Intellectually gifted
? Yeah, right. We have a pristine lake surrounded by majestic mountains. We have lush green fields that turn into fabulous groomed ski trails in the winter. We have upscale restaurants and thriving businesses and fancy homes; city pizzazz with small town coziness. We even have our very own homegrown C.U.L.T.
The
Clique of Unique Luminary Telepathies
.
When the average person searched this place on the internet, the home page read
Co-Ed for Unified Learning and Teaching,
a New Age school for the hippest of the hip. It appeared to be a rambling English manor, sandstone and massive latticed windows and French doors, surrounded by a cottage garden gone wild.
All very civilized for a place of learning, but what I’d learn scared the crap out of me.
I’d heard the rumors. Students being indoctrinated, engaging in whacky ritualistic stuff, never coming out. Most kids who’d grown up in Wolfebane had been dared to scale the walls or try a trick-or-treat door knock at Halloween. I’d never been so foolish. Nan’s interest in “the other side” spooked me enough without dabbling in the forbidden at a school for kooks. A school I now had to attend. Freaking great.
“Going in some time this century?”
I glared at Colt, sitting smug in his beat up Chevy, eager to get rid of me. Being Nan’s sole neighbor, I’d been thrust on his family when she got carted off to the hospital. I hated staying with his uptight family as much as they hated having me.
“Nah, think I’ll hang with you a bit longer. It’s so much fun.”
He pointed at the door. “Get out.”
I didn’t budge. Colt didn’t scare me. C.U.L.T. did.
“I had no choice staying with your folks. What’s your excuse?”
His expression turned stubborn.
“How old are you anyway? Nineteen? Twenty tops?”
“Twenty-one,” he gritted out. “Too old to be babysitting dorks like you.”
“Dork? That’s mature for a guy tied so tight to mommy’s apron strings he’s still living at home.”
His hands clenched on the steering wheel and I jiggled the door handle. The door opened on the third try. I couldn’t get away from him quick enough.
“If you were this smart-assed with your Nan I’m not surprised she had a stroke.”
Low blow and that’s what it felt like, like he’d kicked me in the guts. The same nauseating feeling I’d had when I’d told her what I’d seen, and she’d uttered five mysterious words—
she took the wrong one
—and keeled over.
“And she’s in a long-term coma?” He drove the boot in harder. “Probably do anything to stay away from you.”
I grabbed my backpack, slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and slammed the door. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. It wasn’t what he’d said as much as the possible truth behind it.
He leaned across the bench seat and leered out the window. “Enjoy the lock-up. Perfect place for psychos. You’ll fit right in.”
“Screw you.”
Colt gave me the finger, gunned the engine, and squealed away from the curb, leaving me standing in front of my prison.
Wolfebane High had sucked, but
boarding
school? Fine for my fictional faves Zoey Redbird and Rose Hathaway and Cammie Morgan. Me? I wasn’t the kick-ass heroine so much.
I stiffened as a group of girls exited the school gates. No uniforms, just a motley mix of preppy and prissy mixed with cheerleader chic. In my faded jeans, striped hoodie and worn pink ballet flats, I stood out like the nerdy bookworm I was.
One of them, a tall blonde with shiny hair to her waist, stopped and glanced my way. I half smiled. She scrutinized me from head to foot, before giving me the cheerleader welcome.
She turned her back.
Humiliation heated my cheeks as Cheerleader Chick said something to the group and they tittered, gawked at me, and snickered.
Not one of them smiled. Most did the same flick-over dismissive thing before turning away and heading up the street towards town. Leaving me as helpless and mortified and angry as I’d been at Wolfebane High.
There too I’d tried to pretend princesses didn’t get to me, that my grades were all that mattered, but with every condescending smirk, every haughty glare, I’d wanted to smash my fist into their conceited faces. Not that I was pro-violence. Unless provoked.
Who needed all that perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect outfit crap anyway? Who needed friends?
But as I watched the tight-knit group stroll down the street in all their trendy glory, confident in their place in the world, a small part of me yearned to run after them, to be part of their shared secrets, their out-there prettiness, their inner circle.
“Cliques are the same the world over, huh?”
I stopped staring at the princess posse and mustered a tight smile for the girl who’d voiced my opinion. A girl who looked about twelve, wearing a bizarre outfit of saffron sequined halter top, camouflage pants, and patent leather Mary Janes.
“You go to school here?”
She nodded, her baby face losing years by the second. “Third year.”
I’d never been good at small talk so I scrambled for a semi-polite response. “You like it?”
“Yeah, it’s not bad.”
She pointed at my bags. “First day?”
“Uh-huh.”
She glanced at her watch. “Gotta run. Good luck.”
Great, even the youngest, worst-dressed kid in school didn’t want to hang around me. And how could she be in third year when she looked like she belonged in preschool? I must’ve been staring because she pointed to her face.
“Don’t let this fool you. I can conjure up a good spell like the rest of them.”
Just like that, my bubble of normality burst. It had been thin to begin with, but it had been there, an illusion that this place was like any other high school, complete with an in-crowd tailor made to ignore me.
But nothing about C.U.L.T. was normal, as I’d soon find out.
END OF SAMPLE
Table of Contents
The You Know What Hits the Proverbial Fan
It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses a Boyfriend