MOOD BOARD #3

It had been the fall of autumn. I remember feeling the gentle brush of winter snow on my small arms as my mother held me in hers. My hands clutched at her shoulder as I buried my young face into her chestnut hair. She smelled like vanilla, magic, and death. All familiar smells. My father placed a reassuring hand on my back. Nights like these were not new to me, and I’m sure he was taken off guard by my squeamishness.

“Look, my lovely.” He whispered in my ear. The sound of his deep, melodic, voice cascaded over me and my body relaxed. I twisted my head to see his eyes. They were like my mother’s, like the eyes of all our kind, eyes which spanned across the ages of history back to the war before time. His eyes were the color of palest gray, the color of the sky in the time before the light of dawn. To others, the color would have been otherworldly beautiful if it did not denote a killer. Instead the pale grey of his eyes were the eyes of terror, fear, and unmitigated horror, but this gray color belonged to the eyes or my father: eyes of steady safety and love; and the wild excitement he felt about this night glistened them with brilliance.

Excerpt from Wickeds (working title) Prologue
Image: Photographer Unknown

MOOD BOARD #2

By the time Gran sent me upstairs to change, the flower shop was only a mix-match of empty vases and she was fiddling with a bunch of half wilted peony. With a slight caress of her caring hands, they would be brought back to their original beauty. That was her gift, to give dying things a renewed energy to live. She never liked anyone to watch her though, especially me.

It would take her all night to refill the store and start the orders for the week. She never asked for my help, it wasn’t her way. I collected the money, made the runs to the bank, and helped refill the store front if there were flowers in the back arranging room during the day. This unsaid agreement suited me just fine. I never questioned why I couldn’t help, or why I was never allowed to go through the port door to the alley garden. It was a secret and I respected secrets.

Excerpt from Wickeds (working title) Chapter 1
Image: Photographer Unknown

MOOD BOARD #1



“Stop Rodger.”

I froze, rigid this time. My heart stopped and beat twice as fast when it started again. One skinny waffle I could stall, but two Wickeds? I was surprised I was not dead already. Or at least tied up and tossed next to a garbage can, just another leftover piece of trash. The new voice was deep; thunder from the Harrows was not deeper. It caressed my already raw nerves like sandpaper with its sharp intonation of command.

Rodger hesitated, looking back quickly, as though even he did not know we were not alone. My eyes shot back and forth between the two. I certainly had surprise on my side for Rodger, but the new voice was more sinister and sounded like it belonged to a much bigger man. He had stopped the other’s advance. I might have had a martyr complex with skinny before, but I was not stupid – this deeper voice would kill me if it wanted to.
The crowd roared only a street away, firework brusting above us. “Go. Now.” The voice bellowed. It was a warning, but it felt like a command. Somehow, I was still stubbornly stupid enough to want to challenge his authority. No one – other than Gran – told me what to do. Commands were the currency of the Wicked. I loathed them. With the light from the crowd closer, I saw the shadowed features of the larger man raise. I could feel the pain begin eating at the back of my eyes again.

He was saving me; he was giving me a way out, and I was going to stay put stupidly? Nope. Not even close. I did not think about the crowd, I did not look back – I could not – I just started running and I kept running. If there were screams coming from the scene of death behind me, I heard none. I heard nothing. I didn’t take the train home; I just followed the road away from the city till everything turned black as pitch.

Excerpt from Wickeds (working title) Chapter 1
Image: Photographer Unknown