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  In the Dark

  A Dark Time Novel

  Iris Sweetwater

  Copyright © 2018 by Raven Heidrich

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Hydra Productions

  Salt Lake City, UT k12

  http://hydraproductionsonline.com/

  Cover by Sunnyside Up Graphics LLC

  Formatting Image Created by Alvaro_cabrera - Freepik.com

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Part I:

  Alexandra

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 2:

  Carlie & Tanner

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part 3:

  Kingsbridge

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16 k12

  Acknowledgments

  A lot of you know how long I have wanted to write and publish a YA Fantasy book. I spent my adolescent years imagining myself as the next JK Rowling. Well, I know that I am not her, I have my own story, and I am not rich and famous…yet, but to finally do this feels freeing and yet so scary at the same time. I want to thank all my sprinting buddies for getting me through the painstaking hours of writing this novel. I want to thank my author friends who encouraged me when I was overthinking this. And I want to thank my family for the hours they allow me to sit at my computer and put dreams on a white page.

  Part I:

  Alexandra

  Chapter 1

  It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much rather say

  hello. Hello to a new adventure. ~ Ernie Harwell

  ALEXANDRA Hill looked up at the sky, her crystal blue eyes matching the clear waters of the falls that ran down the mountainside the capitol building was set into. But she didn’t like what they saw there.

  An eerie silence had come over Kingsbridge, the usual sounds of sea birds flying overhead no longer a deafening cry, she had to tune out. Instead, the sky had turned black, a set of clouds marching in like an army, the likes of which she hadn’t remembered seeing her whole life. Spring could get dreary, but never severe. This was something entirely new.

  Instinctively, Alexandra knew it was a dream. There was no one on the streets around her, and the city was much too big to ever warrant being the only one on the streets, at any time of day. But that didn’t stop her stomach from churning with anxiety and fear, as the army of black wisps came closer, dampening everything to a dull black and grey, as far as the eye could see.

  This was not the darkness of night that brought about the most brilliant stars and planets; those she could see just beyond her own. This was all-consuming. It was like an omen for the end of days, and she didn’t like it. She wanted to wake up, but she knew better than to pinch herself. It never worked. She always just had to ride out whatever scenario her imagination had in store for her.

  The blackness stood still now, strangely not moving anywhere else. That was when the lightning began, jumping in between the clouds and not even trying to touchdown. Yet, it seemed to get stronger with every stroke, as if it was building energy before it came down to destroy the ghost town she was standing in.

  A chill went down Alexandra’s spine as the wind blew wildly around her, and yet, she couldn’t make herself move to find shelter even as the breeze began to blow river water into her face.

  Then, she saw movement of another kind, figures dropping down from the sky. Her thought was tornadoes or something, even though that was not a common weather event for Kingsbridge. In fact, she couldn’t recall ever being through one before. She was sure it must have happened once or twice in her seventeen years.

  She watched in horror and confusion, though, as she saw tornados had nothing to do with it. A blinding light accompanied what looked like massive wings descending from the Heavens above.

  ***

  Alexandra Hill sat up in her bed and looked over at the clock on the wall. It was actually a tiny cuckoo clock that sat as an almost complete replica of the clock tower in Kingsbridge. She had lived in this town for as long as she could remember. Only a few days past her seventeenth birthday, it was also the heat of summer. It was the kind of heat that sent those waves in the air you could see between buildings if you looked hard enough. Even though the school year would begin again in two weeks, this heat is exactly what would keep many of those in town, who traveled, away until the last minute.

  The Hills were different. They stayed in place much of the time, enjoying staycations when half the town was gone and out of the way. Alexandra remembered enjoying those times when she was little, throwing snowballs down empty alleyways to try and hit her father or mother square in the back. It felt like the town was theirs.

  Alexandra took a look in the mirror just after pulling a white tee over her cami, a pair of jean shorts paired with it. She slid her fingers through her strawberry blonde hair to push it out of her face so that everyone could see the dabbing of tiny freckles that speckled her face, around the center and her forehead. Her mother was a woman who was all about appearances, so she tried to meet her in the middle. She didn’t feel the need to be a warring teenager with her mother, even if she did want to get out of there and see the world.

  Her eyes were the only thing she felt the need to show off or brag about. Their depths looking like endless pools of clear blue ice, framed by the longest of black lashes. The rest of her she found to be average, which was okay. She could fit in anywhere. She could be anyone. She didn’t have to always obviously be Alexandra Hill, the girl who never left Kingsbridge.

  She came down the stairs quietly, her thin hair swinging behind her, on the way down. Though, the creaking of the third step from the bottom would always announce her entrance regardless of what she tried to do. She could never sneak out that way, didn’t have a window she could so easily climb out of, though she guessed if she ever needed to, she could figure it out. Not that she needed to. Her parents were pretty free range. Isn’t that what they called it now? They trusted her for the most part, and she felt no need to rebel or be out until all hours of the night; especially on a night she knew she should be sleeping or studying. Many of the parents in her neighborhood were like this, and it made every day roaming the city a bit of a new adventure. You never knew who you would run into or what you would see.

  Alexandra went into the kitchen to grab a bagel with cream cheese spread over it and a small cup of orange juice; her usual breakfast; unless her mother made something fancy, or she ran out of cream cheese. As she sat down at the kitchen table, munching on the creamy goodness, she waited to hear it from her mother. It was that thing she always said when she caught her daughter eating what was practically dessert, for breakfast. “You know, I would tell you it would eventually catch up with you, but from the looks of you after this long, I could be entirely wrong,” the woman teased with her hands on her hips in frustration.

  Alexandra just kept smiling and eating her breakfast, ignoring her mother’s thinly veiled jealousy at her ability to be thin and eat what she wanted. The thing was that Alexandra didn’t see anything special about it. Those who were too thin got made fun of just as much as those who weighed too much. It didn’t really make a difference.

  Her father came into the room, his hand wrapping around her mot
her from behind, and Alexandra blushed at the private moment. She knew what he was whispering to her, that she was perfect and could eat whatever she wanted. This was something she was grateful for, a great example of two loving adults. They were so normal, and even if it bored her sometimes, she knew she loved them just as they were.

  Her lips smacked involuntarily at the last bite before she downed the orange juice. She went back to the kitchen to wash up, so she could go out. She was hoping a few of her friends would be trickling back in from vacation. She was excited to share the last summer of high school, or for some of them, the last summer before college.

  “Heading out?” her parents asked in unison as she reached the door.

  Alexandra nodded. “Yeah, not much freedom left before school starts. I’ll be back around dark.” They waved to her, and she practically skipped out the door, looking out at her world, what had been her world now for 17 years.

  This time, as she surveyed the city, the water called to her. She couldn’t see it from where she was, through the denseness of the trees and homes in cookie-cutter browns, reds, and oranges. She headed north with the imposing capitol and its surrounding houses for the rich at her back. Then, the sounds of the main streets and bridges assailed her ears. It meant she was getting closer, the water just below their roads on this side of the city.

  Alexandra came out into a clearing, looking across the six-lane road that ran this side of the city, right in front of the market and some of the apartments in Kingsbridge, though there were not many. The city catered more to those who like nice sprawling properties rather than cramped urban living; this despite the closeness her neighborhood felt, with its uneven pavements and windows, where they could see inside the house next to them.

  Before looking both ways, she crossed the street, and she instantly spotted a familiar figure hanging off the edge of the west side of the small bridge; the only way across to the other side of Kingsbridge; the seedy side.

  Truly, it was just dirty and cramped with industrial businesses, backed right up against the trailers of those who could not afford what the main part of the city offered.

  The bridge was rarely used by vehicles, and in fact, Alexandra knew the schedule by heart, delivery trucks passing across both ways at six, nine, twelve, and three. They were good for another two hours before they would have to move or face an old eighteen-wheeler truck head-on.

  Alexandra smiled at her friend Wesley and sat down next to him, their feet dangling high above the water many yards below. “So, how does it feel?” she asked, knowing he would get what she meant. Wesley was one of her older friends that would be going off to college and leaving all of the younger ones in the town behind. Not that Wesley was going particularly far, only a couple of towns away, but so many were going to have adventures, off into the unknown. Alexandra couldn’t help but be a little jealous.

  She didn’t want to be left behind. She’d rather be going off on her own, just the same, to find herself in the world.

  Wesley scoffed. “How do you think I feel? I am scared to death, Alex,” he said, using the short boyish nickname she was given when they were younger. Wesley was one of the first friends she could remember having. They had been inseparable when they were little, and their parents had always believed they would end up together in the end. The joke was on them because she was not Wesley’s type, not by a long shot. He was still her best friend. She would miss him when he was gone. “I mean, of course, I want to go see places other than this. I want to grow up and do my own thing, but this is home. What if it doesn’t feel that way anymore when I try to come back for the holidays?” he asked.

  Alex tried to put herself in Wesley’s shoes. She didn’t worry about that sort of thing because she felt like home would be wherever she made it. She didn’t need to be stuck in one place or time, but she could see how others could feel that way, scared of the unknown, wanting that familiarity. “I am sure this will always be home, Wesley,” she said, rubbing his back in comfort. “But this is a chance to spread your wings and find your true happiness. Don’t forget that this is a good thing. I am super jealous,” she told him with a quirky smile that left one dimple digging in while her left side had none.

  “You’re right, I guess. I don’t exactly want to work at the bakery with my father forever, do I? I mean, it is a great job, and I can still help over the summer, but it may not be what I want to do.” She could see the light bulb going off in his head, the nervousness being replaced with a bit of excitement. She couldn’t believe she had to wait a year to know what that felt like.

  Wesley stood up, his toes right at the edge of the dirty, old bridge. If it weren’t for the seawater wafting up into their noses from below, they would be able to smell the rot of the road and the stench from the industrial part of town.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked in a half-worried giggle. She looked down below. Though she was not afraid of heights, the way the rocks and cement piled up where the water sloshed against the bridge supports, down below, made her nervous, especially knowing she wasn’t exactly the best swimmer she knew. Yet, Wesley was standing at the precipice, his arms raised unabashedly like he might just decide to jump.

  “I am living a little,” he said with a laugh of abandon. Alex shook her head at him in disbelief.

  “You’re insane, Wesley!” Alex told him, scooting her legs back from the edge; standing up as if he might take her down with him, by proxy.

  “I think we are all a little insane, Alex, don’t you?” he retorted before putting his body into a diving position. Alex could feel her heart beating so fast in her chest. She watched in terror at her best friend’s attempt at this daredevil move. She would never be brave enough to try. She was scared to death she would look over and find him dead on the rocks, in just seconds! She forced herself to at least watch anyway, as a holler left his lips, his body plummeting towards the water below.

  It was so far down it was hard to tell when he first landed; where he hit. But, then, she saw his head bob to the surface and got a wave out of him. She couldn’t help but smile down at the crazy stunt. It was funny, she thought she was being brave by getting out of there for college the very next year, but Alex would never be as brave as that. She left him there, knowing he would come up sopping wet and regret it, needing to go home. She, then, made her trek to the other side of town. This was the part of town where her parents didn’t particularly like her going; the rich side. They always thought she would be treated a certain way, but other than the occasional sideways glance, nothing bad ever happened.

  Alex passed by all the shops again before taking a right turn into the depths of the homes that got even more lavish, as she got closer to the capitol. Alex liked coming by at the end of summer to see that all of the wealthy were coming back from their lavish vacations; usually with almost double the belongings they left with. Alex dreamed of where they got all their souvenirs and what adventures they had gone on. She dreamed that one day she would do the same thing and bring back something as proof.

  This part of town was almost as empty as the side Alex lived on. Only those who worked in local government were still around, as well as a few of the rich elderly who could no longer travel. She was a little disappointed at the lack of a spectacle until she passed by the large estate, where a girl from her year at school was helping unload items from a large vehicle.

  The short girl, with red flaming hair and a pointy nose, was not her best friend, but they had been lab partners in science for a couple of years. Now, this girl, Candace, was graduating a year early and leaving her behind. She had been gifted with kindness, smarts, and money.

  Alex waved to her. She wondered if Candace had ever heard from the college she wanted so badly to get into. Her family had left before the letter came.

  Candace said something to her family and came up to Alex, a warm smile on her face. “Hey, how was the vacation?” Alex asked, being polite.

  “Oh, it wasn’t as great as it always looks, A
lex. I felt like it was the same one we have taken for the past three years.” The girl rolled her eyes, one side of her mouth turning up in a bitter grin. “I have actually been anxious to get home and see my letter.”

  Alex’s eyes went wide. “You haven’t gotten the mail yet?” She knew if it were her, she would have done that before anything else, and no one would have stopped her. But maybe Candace wasn’t as thrilled to get out of this town, where she had everything she wanted. Alex didn’t really know. They knew each other, but not all the intimate workings of each other’s minds. In fact, Alex felt like these days she had only a bunch of so-so friends and no best friends; not the way she had when she was younger. And maybe that was for a reason, preparing her to move on and find best friends elsewhere, not leaving her too attached to the place she was determined not to be.

  “No, honestly, I am a little nervous. Would you look at it with me?” she asked, and Alex felt flattered, nodding excitedly.

  The two girls walked up to the mailbox, and it was so unassuming for such a large house, a rich family. Alex watched with bated breath as Candace pulled the mail out of the mailbox and closed it. Sifting through it, they moved away from the house and sat down on the curb by the neighbor’s house, which was likely still unoccupied from the summer. Candace slowly set the mail next to her and pulled out an envelope, a very official-looking one.

  Alex didn’t know why she felt the excitement and the nerves like it was her own letter from college. Maybe it was because Candace should have been in the same year as her except for the fact that she was able to graduate early. Alex had not even known it was an option until it was too late.

  Slowly, Candace opened the letter and scanned it before she passed it over to Alex, not saying a word. By the way that her shoulders drooped, eyes averted towards the ground, she was sure what the letter said. She didn’t know how to comfort her friend.