Midnight Quills

Prophecy Girl is a novel currently in progress, the first in a series of contemporary fantasy stories. This excerpt is from the first chapter.

“Am I a prisoner?” She asked.

“Not at all, but you’re going to want to stay here a while and learn what we have to teach you before you go back out into the real world. Or you will when you hear what we have to say.” Tom said.

Leesah was simply grateful that he had answered with a complete sentence. She didn’t respond, but held his gaze and waited for him to continue.

“Do you remember the other night?” Tom asked after a moment’s silence.

“Which night?” Leesah asked.

If Tom called her bluff, he refused to show it, but rather continued. “The night on the coast, with a boy.”

Leesah only nodded.

“How much do you remember?” Tom asked.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Leesah said, wondering now if she was in some kind of interrogation.

The images that she had woken to were so surreal that she had filed them away as being some sort of dream. It couldn’t have been real, even if the rest of the scene was. Her mind was unable to make sense of what she had seen, so instead she said she was imagining things.

“Was it your first date?” Tom asked, pressing the issue.

Leesah remained silent.

“Was it your first time with a boy?” Tom asked, “Did you let him touch you?”

“No!” Leesah yelled, glaring across the table as a tear fell from her eye and down her cheek.

The memories came flickering back. She remembered how nervous she was, how he had kissed her, how his hands had begun to move over her body, how uncomfortable she had felt. She remembered trying to pull away, and him trying to pull her back. She remembered starting to feel trapped.

And then there was a flash of red, and everything went dark.

She became aware of another hand upon hers, the soft touch of Angelique’s fingers caressed the back of her hand. Leesah turned her gaze to meet the blonde woman, who gave her an encouraging smile.

“It’s okay, Leesah.” Angelique said, “We’ve all been through it.”

“Been through what?” Leesah said, another tear began to fall from her eye, and she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to stop the flow.“The change.” Tom said, “You went through your first change.”

His voice was slightly softer, rather than intense and pressing like it had been a moment ago. Leesah turned her gaze back to him. Something echoed faintly in her soul, somewhere beneath her consciousness, she knew what he was about to say. She also knew that it couldn’t be true, and part of her wanted to keep him from saying those words.

“Leesah,” Tom said. “You’re a werewolf.”