Title: Flying Away
Author: Caroline A. Gill
Genre: YA Dystopian
Sub-Genre: Paranormal
Realeased: January 11, 2016
Living as a runaway, dragging a horse and her cousin Eleanor across the countryside, Lani must learn to survive. Now Lani is the only person between the horrible, greedy lights and the last bit of family she has left. Her own heart is barely beating, but powerful memories pull her to Malcolm St. John. She fights what she feels, buried deep within her shattered soul.
Malcolm St. John always held his feelings in, especially about Iolani. So when she shows up on his doorstep, desperate and determined, Mal must decide if the wild tales she spins are the fragments of insanity or the last hope for a dying nation. This Lani is different from the child he knew. Something is coming for her, for him, and will not be stopped
If the cousins and Malcolm can’t escape the grasping hunters who hound them, the future of a broken America will be destroyed. Everything Lani has ever loved will burn with them. Somehow, she must find a path through friendship and loyalty to save them all.
My relief at my escape washed
away as I saw Eleanor's foot was already under the lake surface. Her
leg slid toward the lapping waters, her limp body following behind.
“No!” I cried out. Her other leg and then her hip slipped under.
The rest of her body fell into the abyss.
With that scream, I jumped up
ready for battle. By the time I got there, only the tip of her hands
were visible, sinking fast. Laying on my stomach, I yanked as hard as
I could on her fingertips, pulling her wrists out of the water.
Adrenalin filled me. My head buzzed. I could see every detail of
everything around me. Searching under the water, I felt Eleanor's
shoulder. Dammit. I plunged both arms in, holding her against
the tar's grasp. Her glowing face floated beneath the surface, eyes
opened.
Grabbing her under her arms, I
pulled against the suction of the lake monster. I refused to lose
this battle, this friend. With the strength of seven men, I pulled
her body back up, over the rough-hewn wood. Even as I yanked her
shining shoulders away from the edge of the wooden dock, the darkness
curled itself three times around her leg and strengthened its hold,
resisting my intrusion.
“Eleanor! Eleanor, please!”
My tears were useless. I was shivering and frantic at the same time.
I fought the malice. Whatever
it was, the thing would not be denied. Hungry and determined, it did
not pause. It wanted Eleanor. I struggled against the added weight of
her water-soaked clothes.
A splinter stabbed my foot
while I yanked on my cousin's paralyzed body. The sharp pain of it
was distracting. It made me angry instead of afraid.
In the forest, the flies had
given me a gift. Because of them, I could see beyond my limited
senses. The darkest pitch was real, malignant and intelligent.
Baleful eyes that marked the head of the beast shone clear as holiday
lights. I wanted to shout something courageous like, “By the power
of GreySword!” or some other battle-cry out of a childhood show. I
wanted to be special, to have some ability to fight the scary thing
that held my cousin. I had nothing but the flies' unintentional
gift–that and my own stubbornness.
Standing up straight, I lunged
away with all my might, calves straining against the mud and grass at
the edge of the lake. “We are gonna make it. We are,” I vowed
with each gained inch. Eleanor was almost off the dock, almost free
of the bucking wood.
I looked back. The sinuous
blackness still held her leg tight. It stretched like gum on the
asphalt on the hottest days of August. Naked and shivering, my body
started shaking. Pulling against such hunger left me drained. We
gained precious ground, but soon I would falter. I felt insignificant
trying to resist the lake creature.
Where was my mighty sword that
I could use to cut the evil apart? Looking for anything that might
sever the connection, I used the glow of Eleanor's body to search the
nearby ground. There was a rusty length of chain and a broken shovel
a few steps away, too far to do me any good.
Tears sprang to my eyes. Tears
that I did not shed at the wrenching agony that killed my mother.
Tears that did not fall while my mother's blood ran away, mingling
with spilt oil and gasoline on the rain-slicked road–those tears.
Each one was now a deluge. My anger and fear merged, a wick in the
center of my bright frustration.
With clenched teeth, I started
humming my mother's favorite lullaby, Rock-a-bye Baby. I resisted the
illness that fed from those baleful eyes, floating ever nearer. It
was the only song that came to mind. Weirdly, the predator's grip
loosened a little. Anything that worked even a little was a road I
would travel willingly.
Sweat stung my eyes. My tear
ducts filled again. I started to sway from dizziness. Shouting the
song at the tar octopus, I pulled and pulled against the flowing
despair. “When the wind blows... the cradle, the cradle...”
With rage and determination, I
yanked again on Eleanor's shoulders but to no avail. She was held
tight, a rusted iron wedge forgotten in an overgrown tree. Grabbing
at the slick tar that held her immobile, I was brought to my knees.
The disease flowed out of the lake, full of venom and pesticide.
I spat at its grip, fighting
for both of us. The dizziness grew.
A buzzing filled my head, a
sound that both cocooned me and rang like the sounding of a
tremendous tower bell. “Help me!” I cried out in desperation,
confused and weary.
All around me, lights flickered
and grew–lights blending with other flickering lights. I watched
the starry sky fall to earth. I was at the center of a moving galaxy.
It was beautiful and
miraculous, like floating in the middle of a perfectly calm sea and
seeing the stars in stereo.
Like ash falling from a
newly-made volcano, the fireflies came.
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Caroline went to school at UCLA and NIU. She married the love of her
life. Facing the world with children made her aware of how vulnerable
they are. Weaving tales of courage, she tries to find hope. Living
near the great California Redwoods, she finds a sense of the finite
and infinite touching. The creative world is like that, especially
when authors feel inspired.
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