Your Moment of Bohemia

As part of my new gig with Bohemia--the literary journal I am fortunate enough to staff on--I will be writing a weekly blog assignment here catered to our fans/friends/bohemian followers. The rest of the staff are poised to write, as well, so feel free to visit http://bohojo.wordpress.com/ to check out my fellow staffers in all their glory!

For me: sometimes I will write on certain topics and other times, I'll post some fiction I've been working on so keep checking back weekly for that! :)

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Well, readers, it's that time! And, this week, I hope I'm doing Bohemia justice by pinning the Prologue of my first complete novel to the yonder space below for all to read.

I originally wanted to put a snippet from my Noir Novella because I'm super excited with where it's going, but I thought I'd hold back on that for a bit until I can grab a section of it that doesn't speak too much to the piece I submitted for the Magazine. I don't want to step on that reveal.

For those who don't know, my first novel is in the "editing" phase and currently being shopped to agents. It is a YA fantasy piece about a seventeen year old girl who happens to be an empath and a demon hunter. 

I hope you aren't thrown off by the present tense. The YA books I read around the time I started this were written in that form and I wanted to take a stab at it myself.

Anyway, I hope you like it: 


 

Prologue:

A scream awakens my senses.  

My eyes flutter open and, after a quick jogging of my memory, I realize that I’m still sitting in my plush armchair by the window. I fell asleep reading. The dim light of my desk lamp flickers twice before leaving me in darkness.

Another scream. Mom?

I sit up, letting my History textbook fall off my chest and onto the ottoman. I stand and stretch and shake my head to wake up.

Voices.

Chantal’s at Volleyball camp and Dad’s out finishing his last day of a weekend convention in Kansas City.

Voices.

Something’s wrong.

Fuzzy layers of sleep slither off my brain and I rush to my bedroom door in near panic. I slowly open it without a sound.

“Now.” A low, even voice filters to me from downstairs.

I slide out into the hall and keep my focus towards the noise. The plush off-white carpet under my bare feet absorbs each step as I make it to the top of the stairs. I venture a look down into the living room, where my mother sits on the couch with her hands folded on her lap. Her normally blue and green aura has been replaced with the muddy gray tone of fear. A tall man with shoulder length hair, ripped jeans, and a worn t-shirt stands in front of her. A haze of brown floats around his shoulder, flanked by flashes of mustard-yellow.

My eyes sweep around the room and find nothing out of place but the front door stands ajar. With the stranger’s anger and uncertainty, I need to do something quick. I tiptoe a few doors back to the master bedroom and pick up the receiver on my dad’s nightstand. The line is dead.

“It’s not yours to have.” My mom’s usually firm voice is shaky and fragile.

Feeling an overwhelming need to be in that room, I travel back down the hall. Two steps too far, though, and I make the gravest mistake of my life by making my presence known.

A shot echoes the entire first floor, a pop so loud I cover my ears. Ear. I hadn’t even seen the gun. My left arm doesn’t move. Nothing. I look down as red river canals of blood seep gradually through my thin, long sleeve shirt on their way to the ground.

“You said…” Argumentative voices reach me, rasping echoes of the same phrase.

Another shot pierces the funnel of muffled sounds around me, bringing my attention back to the living room. Smoke curls in the air behind my mother’s back. Her posture is straight for a few seconds and then, the impact of the bullet tenderly pushes her to a slump. A shock of white overtakes the gray around her shoulders before the color disappears altogether.

“What have I…?” My brain slackens to a dizzy mess of injured circuitry. My breath shortens and I fall to the stairs, cradled against the banister. She would be alive if I had stayed out of it. What was I thinking? I chastise myself.

The man’s waxen face turns to me. A smile swims across his mouth, revealing two missing teeth behind a few weeks’ stubble. He lifts my mother’s hand forcefully and peels the wedding ring from her thin, lifeless finger. He releases the appendage nonchalantly and stalks passed me to the front door, shades of red and grey swirling after him.

Chantal will find us. My eyes flash to the magnet-covered fridge where my older sister’s note tells mom that practice finishes at eight. I pin my right arm to the baluster and lift the bottom half of my body. I twist at the waist to slide my upper half up the wooden poles to the handrail.

She can’t be the one to find us. I think as I make my way to the side table just inside the kitchen where my mother always leaves her purse.

I pass out on the kitchen floor as the cell phone I had retrieved dials 911.

 

*Kayla*