Welcome to the Hayle Coven Novella Blog Tour for award-winning author Patti Larsen. Join us each day for a new chapter in the Hayle Coven prequel novella, Dreams and Echoes and enter to win a Kindle Fire! (Or equivalent gift card.) Be amongst the first to read this brand new edition to the 20 (now 21!) book series that will conclude with The Last Call this July, and find out why fans are raving about the Hayle Coven series.
Need to get caught up? Get Chapter 1 Here and Chapter 2 Here
Chapter Three
The ball leaps from
my foot, back and forth, right and left as I run and dodge my way down the
soccer field. The crowd roars their appreciation, my team one goal off the
world championships.
This is it, my
moment, my chance to prove I'm the best soccer player who has ever been born.
The sky overhead turns a multi-hued rainbow of colors as the demons on one side
of the field stomp their feet in time with the human crowd screaming my name.
I feint as a demon
player rushes me, her horns down, charging me like a bull, bright red uniform
matching her skin. She rushes past me, missing me as I twirl like a ballerina,
the ball still in perfect balance between my feet. I complete my pirouette and
pull my right foot back, the goal only feet away.
Easy in. Easy win.
The roaring crowd
goes wild, my name chanted wildly, the air thick with heat.
No, wait. Cold. Icy
cold, prickling goosebumps on my arms as my foot slips and I fall—
I jerked upright,
breathing out a gasp of air in a mist of ice. I shivered, wrapping myself in my
quilt again, teeth clattering together as I glanced out the window. No snow.
Hey, it was summer, right?
So why the freaking
cold—
Something flickered on
my right and I turned with another gasp, this one from fear rather than the
change in temperature. A young man stood beside my bed, glowing softly white,
glaring at me.
At my wrist.
I choked on a meep of
terror and leaped out the left side of my bed, falling on my hip as he lunged
toward me, face full of fury, icy hands reaching for me. Backpedaling was
harder than usual, my shoulders hitting a heavy box and pinning me in place.
Didn't stop my feet from
trying to push me further back, my soles rubbing raw on the carpet as my legs
flailed for escape.
Empty eyes burned
through me, the chill of the grave sending endless shivers up my spine as he
came to hover in my face. I knew him, my mind clicking over, making
connections. I hadn't had a chance to ask Mom where the last family who lived
here went, and now I knew.
Or, at least, had a good
idea.
“You're an echo.” I
tried to keep my voice steady, but the quaver in it probably told him I was
terrified.
“Give it back.” His voice
sounded hollow, as though coming from far away, hands scrabbling uselessly at
my wrist. For the bracelet. My feet finally found purchase, frantic energy
pushing me to stand. I bobbed around the box that had held me in place and
backed away from him, rubbing my skin where his ghost echo ran through me.
“HOW DARE YOU!” He came
at me again, going through my whole body this time, mouth gaping in a black
hole the last thing I saw before he plunged into me. I shuddered violently, my
body rejecting the chill of his death as I looked away, cringing from the
encounter.
It didn't take him long
to try again. This time, someone else took over. My demon magic roared in
frustration behind my fear, pushing back as the young man's echo swooped around
for another pass. Amber fire raced around his edges, lighting him up with
flame.
That got a new reaction.
He screamed, grasping his phantom head with his transparent hands and vanished.
Panting, half sobbing, I
bent over in half, gripping my stomach as my dinner threatened to come up on
its own. Dizziness washed over me, so powerful I almost missed my door flinging
itself open, the flash of silver as Sassafras rushed to my side.
“Syd!” He leaped into my
lap as I fell to the floor, hugging both myself and him. His whole body shook,
amber eyes on fire as he looked around, fur at attention, tail puffed to three
times normal. “What happened?”
I told him as I
swallowed the rush of saliva filling my mouth, begging my body not to puke.
Just. Don't. Puke.
Sassafras didn't have a
scrap of sympathy to share as he firmly swatted my cheek with one paw. Claws
in, at least.
“Foolish girl!” He
jumped down to the floor, looking around as he went on. “You need to find him
and send him over.”
Back across the darkness
and into the place of rest. I knew that. I hadn't paid much attention to my
witchly duties, preferring to ignore most of the lessons. But ghosts gave me
just enough of the willies I listened to Mom's lecture about the echoes people
left behind when they died with a kind of sick fascination I shared with
watching horror movies.
Usually, once the soul
moved on, echoes crossed over to their rest. Some echoes were accessible after
passing, using bone or other items of personal connection. But usually such
contact was temporary.
Other times, they
stayed. Usually if they had some kind of unfinished business in the living
world. Normals had that much right, though it was very rare an echo had enough
power for normals to see them. The ghost hunters and psychics most people knew
about were only picking up on stray magic. Not what they thought were ghosts.
Considering echoes were
just the dark part of the whole, the ego part full of flaws and need, without
the temperance of the soul for light, it was probably a good thing normals didn't
have interaction with them.
I was a witch and a
demon and it still freaked me out.
“My demon took care of
it.” I made my way to the bed, my stomach finally settling.
“No,” he snapped, tail
thrashing as he joined me on the quilt. “Your demon power could only drive the
boy away. You must send him over with witch magic if he is to be free.”
Yeah, not going to
happen.
“Mom can do it,” I said,
misery rising inside me as I ran my hand over the bracelet. Sassafras patted my
hand with his shining paw.
“He appeared to you,”
Sass said. “Which makes you responsible for his crossing.”
Just. Freaking. Lovely.
Before I could stop him,
Sassafras hopped down and headed for the door. I knew exactly where he was
going and chased him, but he scampered quickly across the hall out of sight. By
the time I caught up with him, he’d already managed to open Mom’s door. With
magic.
Something he wasn’t allowed to do in the house, the
bratski.
Five minutes later, I
found myself seated firmly at the kitchen table and forced to listen to a
lecture about responsibility and compassion. My arms crossed themselves over my
chest, I swear it, my last scrap of give-a-damn curling up in a corner to suck
its thumb as my irritation at Mom's attitude rose to bite my temper.
“Maybe,” I interrupted
her in a biting tone, “if someone had cleared the house in the first place,”
oh, Syd, Syd, what are you doing? “I wouldn't have some random echo attacking
me in the middle of the night.” I sat back, anger flaring. “Ever think of that,
Mom?”
Youch. One thing about
Mom and me? We knew how to push each other. Yup, yup. And I'd hit the jackpot.
Thing is, Miriam Hayle
was a powerful witch, a wonderful leader—don't ever tell her I said that—and an
all-around perfect example of what magic use and control should look like. I
know I frustrated her to no end. Her oldest daughter, the flake, dropout, loser
who hated magic. So when we fought, she either resorted to losing her crap all
over the place, or crying.
Honestly, I was aiming
for so pissed off she shot fire out her ears. But I hit the exact part of her
guilt I needed to turn on the supernatural waterworks.
She cried pretty. Made
me sick.
Mom sank into a chair
next to me, hands shaking, tears in her eyes. Crystal tears, all shiny and
sparkling. Blech.
“I don't know how I
missed it.” She turned her attention to Sassafras, like I wasn't there. My left
hand fiddled with the bracelet, wondering if I put it back in the box would the
boy go away? Because it had to be the trigger, now that I understood. The sigh
I heard in my closet when I put it on? Woke him up, didn't I?
Amateur. And just one
more instance of proof to me I was the last person who should have access to
magic. Every time something like this came up I had this palpitation in my
heart. Little disasters I could handle. But what happened when they started
getting bigger?
I had no doubt they
would.
Sassafras comforted Mom.
I ignored them both, went back to my room. Stood there a long time, feeling
around the space for the echo, even though it meant my stomach heaved a few
times.
No sign of him, not a
whisper.
Still.
I tightened my wards
around myself, dampening my magic even further even as I wove some around the
edges of my room. I often wondered why this type of magic use didn't bother me,
why I could create shielding to protect myself out of the very power that made
me so sick.
Without answers of my
own and never able to get a satisfactory reply from Mom's own puzzled
confusion, I was grateful at least the warding power was available to me.
I knew if I didn't have
access to such protections, I would have blown up something important long ago.
Like myself.
I curled up on my bed,
back against the head board, covers tight to my chin as I looked around the
room. Didn't sleep. Considered calling out to the echo. I could offer him the
bracelet back, try to make amends. Maybe then he'd leave.
Wasn't holding my
breath.
It was a long, trembling
night.
***
About Patti Larsen
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My official bio reads like this:
Patti Larsen is an award-winning middle grade and young adult author with a
passion for the paranormal. But that sounds so freaking formal, doesn't it? I'm
a storyteller who hears teenager's voices so loud I have to write them down. I
love sports even though they don't love me. I've dabbled in everything from
improv theater to film making and writing TV shows, singing in an all girl band
to running my own hair salon.
But always, always, writing books
calls me home.
I've had my sights set on world
literary domination for a while now. Which means getting my books out there, to
you, my darling readers. It's the coolest thing ever, this job of mine, being
able to tell stories I love, only to see them all shiny and happy in your
hands... thank you for reading.
As for the rest of it, I'm short
(permanent), slightly round (changeable) and blonde (for ever and ever). I love
to talk one on one about the deepest topics and can't seem to stop seeing the
big picture. I happily live on Prince Edward Island, Canada, home to Anne of
Green Gables and the most beautiful red beaches in the world, with my very
patient husband and four massive cats.
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