Tuesday, October 25, 2011

YA PARANORMAL FANTASY

Book One




On Amazon!


Stay tuned for interviews with the Fire Sprite:)



My name is Cillia, and I am a Fire Sprite. I try to help kids who run away, but to see me--they have to remember how to believe….
Alli's mother is dead. And there are certain old meddlers in their small town who don't believe her step father, a black man, should raise a 15 year old white girl. On top of it, if the old busybodies knew that that Alli was seeing spirit beings, they would probably put her away anyway. So she decides to runaway. And isn’t a trip into the Land of the Fae a whole lot safer than the streets of Atlanta?
Alli thought so….



FIRE SPRITE
Book one, Realm of the Elemental Witch
by Lenore Wolfe


CHAPTER ONE
Alli

The wake proved a somber affair, though Alli’s mom would’ve preferred people to remember her with joy. Yet, this had shown itself hard to do—when she’d died so young. To her family and friends, her death remained a tragedy. Everyone, who had attended to say their last goodbye, put on a brave face, fighting to smile, trying to keep their tears at bay.
Yet, no one fought their grief as much as her own daughter, fourteen-year-old Alli.
She ducked her head, now, behind the dark hood, she’d worn to hide her face. Her pale face peering out, here and there, searching the crowd for her step-dad, with deep-green eyes, stark with unshed tears.
Her mother wouldn’t have approved of her daughter hiding under a hoodie, while everyone else dressed in suits and ties, and dresses and shawls, all in black.
Well, to be fair, Alli wore black too. She just couldn’t bring herself to play dress up. The idea made her too miserable. Dressing up, meant attending a party. And Allie was not attending a party.
She couldn’t bring herself to put on something pretty, even in something as subdued as black. It hurt too much to think about. She hid, instead, beneath her thick, cheerless clothes, with her chestnut hair tucked back, her face swamped by the large, dark hood where no one could witness her tears.
No decals adorned her hoodie. No chains hung from on her jeans. Nothing broke the endless night of her slight form, dressed in joyless attire.
Ordinarily, Alli loved black. She loved the feeling of the invisibility it gave her. Yet, now, it only gave her a glimpse of a bleak and unappealing future, without her mother. Her future loomed ahead of her, like a sinister chasm—threatening to swallow her whole.
Alli shifted forward. The idea she could live into her eighties—and all those years without her mom there with her—made her strangle on her next breath. Suddenly, the room, itself, seemed surreal, without color. Everything almost took on a lack luster—deprived of its usual bright, perky shades.
She stared around her. She felt like someone had come along and sucked all the living out of her life. She didn’t know how to survive this. She found it impossible to wrap her mind around the idea that her mom had died—forever gone from her, from all of them.
She watched her step-dad as he hugged the shadows against one wall. He had the same stricken look on his face, she recognized must mirror her own.
He hadn’t said a word when he’d noticed what she wore. She knew he would have—at any other time. Not that he had much to say to her—or anyone else for that matter. A man of few words, still he’d have never let this—her refusal to dress for such an affair—slide by on any other day.
But he did today.
He’d left her alone with her grief, recognizing it for what it was. Or, maybe, it said something about his own. Regardless—she loved him for it.
Silently, she watched him. Alli understood why he avoided the crowd. She didn’t blame him. No one here would miss him. They whispered to one another, whether he should be here, though he’d been her mother’s husband, though her mother had loved him deeply, and wouldn’t have spoken to anyone here if she’d known how they would treat him—now—when she had gone.
Ducking her head, Alli sighed. She hadn’t particularly liked—or not liked—her step-dad. He’d never tried to replace her real dad, though anyone could have replaced him. Her real dad had been a cruel, violent man.
Alli had scars across her heart. No one could be her dad. At fourteen—she grasped that she headed for disaster. She didn’t trust men. Heck—she’d stop trusting them around five. She didn’t really trusted anyone—except her mom….
She took to the stairs, two at a time, and hid at the top—away from the crowd—watching—where no one could see her hidden in the shadows on the landing, against the far wall.
From there, she spotted him. A tall, dark, black man, her step-dad held himself with regal accountability. Alli appreciated that her mother had been attracted to him.
Most women were.
He’d dressed in a deep, grey suit, almost to the point of black, which only emphasized how handsome he looked. She’d noticed, too, how the women fell all over themselves around him—even when he appeared to not like their attention. And—she noticed how the older, busybodies harrumphed and snubbed him for it, like he’d been responsible for bringing it on.
Closing her eyes, Alli leaned her head against the banister. She didn’t blame her mother for loving him. He’d been really good to them. He’d protected them, when they needed it most. And he’d provided for them.
She watched, now, as two women spotted each other—and made a beeline straight for him. She shook her head in amazement.
He’d spotted them, too, and to his credit—ducked out the door.
Alli sniffed in disdain. He didn’t ask these women to treat him the way they did. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would act that way. Didn’t they have more pride—then to throw themselves at his feet?
Her mother had only laughed, whenever he’d come to stand beside her, to keep the women from coming on to him. She’d tell him then, he was her handsome prince—and she didn’t mind that the other women knew how lucky she was to have him.
They’d been blessed to have him there. Alli had always realized this. They might have never escaped her father without him. But she’d never gotten too close to him, either.
Her step-dad had tried to get to know her. But her real-dad had beaten all the trust out of her, with each blow of his fist to her mother. He respected her pain. She sensed that he understood, even though she’d been young when she and her mother had escaped her father. She’d taken her father’s violence hard. She’d stopped speaking to anyone, but her mother, for several years. And she’d been adamant that no one man would get the chance to cause her the pain—she’d witnessed her own father cause her mother.
He’d been the one to convince her father that it wouldn’t be in his best interest to keep hunting her mother. He could be a pretty intimidating man, when he wanted.
And even though she’d never gotten too close to him, didn’t mean she appreciated how they treated him—now—when her mother no longer could be a witness.
Sighing, Alli looked away. She didn’t find it cool that now people, who had been pleasant enough to him when her mother lived, converged on him, now, with their hate—when her mother could no longer stop them.
Alli worried about what they might do next.
She’d suffered enough, losing her mother. It wasn’t fair. Now, she fretted that these busybody, vultures would cost her, her home, too. Within a day, the old bats had come right after her step-dad before her mother had even been cremated.
Alli watched as three of the main ones scanned the room, now, searching for him.
She groaned inside and fought off a fresh wave of tears, threatening to spill. How could they do this to her? What if they managed to get rid of him?
What would she do if they succeeded in making him leave—without her?
She might not be close to him. She might not trust him with her deepest secrets—but he was all she had. And her mother had loved him.
She got up from where she’d been sitting, watching through the railing. This had always been her favorite place to spy—where she had, in fact, spied on her mother.
She’d been jealous of how happy her mother had seemed with him. Now, she’d give anything to have her here—laughing—sneaking opportunities to watch a movie with him, on the couch, where they would eat a batch of popcorn together.
Alli would make excuses, not to be there. Most of the time, she’d tell them she had homework, or something, and sneak off to her room. She regretted those moments—those lost opportunities—she’d missed to spend time with her mother.
If only she’d known this would happen—that her mother would no longer be around.
This time, her tears did slip past all of her attempts to hold them back. Hot tears slid down her cheeks, unchecked. She didn’t try to wipe them away. She didn’t care how much her mother wouldn’t have wanted her to grieve.
She couldn’t help it.
She already missed her so much, she couldn’t breathe. She gaped around her, but she didn’t see. Everything had become blurry.
She clutched at her middle. She felt as though something heavy sat on her chest, and she could hardly draw in her next breath. She wanted to pass out.
She gripped the banister, glowering at the people below, who kept talking as though her whole world hadn’t ended.
How could she do this? How could they expect her to? How could she go on, when she couldn’t imagine the next hour without her mom—much less the rest of her life?
Alli stared at the room below. She placed a shaking hand over her mouth. She sucked in her breath.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do this. They couldn’t make her.
She gawked at everyone on the lower floor, who stood talking, like she didn’t sit up here on the landing, suffocating with the knowledge that nothing would be the same again. Her life, as she knew it, had ended. How could they keep going as if everything hadn’t changed?
She realized then, she couldn’t imagine her future—couldn’t see it at all. She didn’t even want one—without her mother in it.
Alli bent double, looking down at the crowd. No one looked up. She glanced around, wildly. She couldn’t get down the stairs, to get outside. She turned, instead, toward the stairs, leading to the attic, which her mother had let her have for her bedroom. Making it to the door, she looked up the endless passage up—but the stairway seemed to stretch out before her, forever.
Her breath caught, as panic set in, and she struggled to suck in air. In blind misery, she drug herself up the stairs, onto the landing, on the floor above, as tears poured down her face and grief tore through her.
She turned right and stumbled into her room, collapsing on the bed, struggling to inhale. She puffed, swiping at the tears, now slipping down her face too quickly to stop them, her chest heaving in great gulps, as she sobbed, no longer able to contain her sorrow.
Her anguish caved her will. She stopped caring she couldn’t breathe. Then, sweet peace took over, and she calmed.
So this was it.
She was dying, too. Well, maybe it was better this way. She wouldn’t have to live without her mother. Pain filled her being. She thrashed in sorrow, her entire world falling in on her all at once—her hurt, too great, too care that her own grief would, now, kill her too.
She’d heard of people who had died of a broken heart. Too late, she guessed, it might be true. Someone should’ve warned her that her sorrow could kill her.

She strangled, fighting again for her next breath—and then she saw her.