Two girls. Four centuries. One curse. Isabella started it—all because a boy fell in
love with her—but it ends with Sarah. Isabella and Thomas meet in secret during
the witching hours while the rest of the
villagers hide behind locked doors. And even though Isabella's scared, she
wants Thomas more. He'll protect her from the night, from his father who'll decide
her future, and from the paranoia-fueled hunting parties taking away innocents.
Centuries later, seventeen-year old Sarah runs away to an aunt she never knew
she had. Her dad? Dead. Her mother? A liar. She wants the memories of a father
she never got, but instead, discovers her father's death wasn’t innocent.
Everyone—the Wiccans, the townies, even her quasi-boyfriend—are hiding
something. The secret the history-rich town will kill to keep entangles Sarah
into a centuries old witch curse.
About the
author:
Erin Butler lives in upstate New York where winter is her arch
nemesis. She prefers to spend her time indoors reading and writing, but
ventures out for chocolate, sunshine, and to perform her librarian duties at a
local library. She lives with her very understanding husband, a stepson, and
doggie BFF, Maxie. Erin’s dreams of becoming an author started in Kindergarten
when she wrote her first story about witches, the eloquently titled,
six-sentence page-turner, “The Three Witches”. Now, she likes to write longer
works for teens in many different genres.
Excerpt:
The lights around the park dimmed. I twisted toward the
makeshift stage again. Forty feet away, a figure stood tall, elevated by the
2x4’s that lay out on the grass only a few hours ago. A hooded black robe
disguised the guy, not that I would know who he was anyway. The dark night, the
material folding over his head, made him look like a faceless grim reaper. It
was dusk and getting darker, the pink deepening to a rose red.
The robed figure lifted his hand, smooth, indifferent, a
marionette being played with. His hand made a wide, sweeping horizontal arc,
pointing into the faces of everybody.
My stomach twisted and turned into knots. Drake bumped
into my shoulder and held out a drink as he sat down. Then, the figure yanked
his hands in the air and a big blaze of fire erupted from the space between the
stage and the audience. I jumped, deftly managing to spill half my soda. I
barely noticed.
Flames shot up, reaching toward the night. The smell of
gasoline used for ignition hung in the air. A few people laughed behind me.
Drake even joined in. “Gotcha,” he said, leaning over, whispering in my ear.
With him so close, the cologne clinging to his long, black robe smothered the
wood smoke that had filled my nostrils.
I peered at him. He turned away and pulled his hood up.
He was the exact match of the person on stage.
I sat with a wizard. I talked with a wizard.
I made fun of people for things like this.
Still, I inched closer to him. The fire, the reddish sky,
the grim reaper, the witches, everything. It got to me. An eerie feeling
tangled itself within every thought, like something hidden watched from just
beyond sight.
On the stage, the figure in the dark cloak threw back the
hood. The fire glow cast the face in shadows, an ever-changing kaleidoscope of
orange, red, and black. The speakers thumped, thumped, thumped as the black
hooded figure tapped the front of the microphone. The hollow sound echoed
throughout the open park and bounced off the surrounding buildings. No one
talked. They barely even moved. Only the slight ripple of the crowd as everyone
inclined their heads and inched forward, awe-struck.
The wind picked up, fueling the flames. The blazed
erupted, flaring up, lighting the figure's face. I gasped.
The grim reaper wasn’t a guy. It was Rose.
Drake peeked over at me, his eyebrows knit together. “You
okay?”
“That’s my aunt,” I whispered loud, still trying to
comprehend it myself. “What is she doing up there?”
"She's the leader.”
"Huh?" Uneasiness squeezed my chest, like the
time I went to see that stupid Ouija board movie with friends. They all laughed
through the scary parts while I spent most of the movie with my heart trembling
and one second away from closing my eyes. “Leader of what?”
“This.” Drake opened his arms wide and twisted his body,
scanning the corners of the five-sided park. “She puts all this together.”
I took it all in. Giant banners announced “Adams
Colonization”, eerie witch posters and mannequins with stringy green hair and
large, red eyeballs stared back. The guards along the stage dressed in old
brown suits and hats I guessed were supposed to be replicas of what the first settlers
wore. The costumes reminded me of pilgrims. They stood at attention, faces
impassible as they monitored the crowd. The picture sank into my brain, this
parallel reality where past met present in a jumbled mesh.
Drake leaned into me again. “Sorry. I should have told
you.”
No wonder why she said she was too busy to
hang out with me. I snuck forward a little, caught up in the
surprise appearance of Rose. The arm that had been touching Drake instantly
chilled. He was so nice. And cute. But the reason why I came here was up on
that stage.
Rose’s voice rang out, low and seductive. “On this day in
1610, our ancestors inhabited a foreign land. Today, we call that piece of land
Adams, Virginia.” Scattered applause swelled through the park. “Our ancestors
brought with them superstition…and fear from England. Men and women,
children—all terrified of one thing.” Rose's hypnotic voice was mesmerizing and
I leaned forward even more. “Witches.” The stare of an old, wise woman lingered
over everybody and when her eyes met mine, a pool of black reflected the
licking orange flames.
“They fled here, terrified of the supernatural.
They hoped to start a new life. One without the constant paranoia. They failed.
Our ancestors lived in complete, maddening, unrelenting fear their entire
lives. Are we like them?” Audible no's and descending grunts rose from the
crowd. “No. We're not.” Her voice pitched higher, and louder. “Today, we
embrace our history. Today, we stare the supernatural in the face and laugh at
it.” Loud cheers erupted from every corner of the park and Rose shouted over
them, “Today, we celebrate!”
Rose motioned to the side of the reaching flames. Two men
in the ugly brown trousers and jackets nodded. “During this opening ceremony,
we will conquer fear as they did back in the old days.” The men pulled at
ropes, hoisting a cross into the air. Mounted to the cross beam was the body of
a woman, her mouth agape in horror.
I drew in a sharp breath. I felt Drake move next to me so
I turned my gaze on him. A sly smile graced his face. He put his arm around me,
pulling me closer. “Are you scared?” he whispered.
I couldn't speak. These people were freakin'
crazy. My eyes darted through the crowd, looking for a policeman—somebody—who
might stop this.
“Don't worry. We always do this on opening night,” Drake
said, pulling me even closer, rubbing my shoulder with his hand.
I wanted to scream at him to do something, to help the
poor woman. He only sat smiling, eyes bright with anticipation. I knocked his
hand off me and pulled away, but before I could wiggle free of Drake's arms and
run to the fire pit, the cotton clothes the woman wore caught fire from the
reaching flames underneath. My breath clogged my throat. I didn't know whether
to scream first, or cry.
The flames spread fast. The waistline already edged with
black char before the fire incinerated it. Dark gray smoke furled over the
helpless woman and puffed up toward the blood red sky.
Guest Post:
Day in the life of…me!
6am – The alarm goes off and my husband hits snooze
about five billion times.
6:30am – We actually get up and we do all those
things necessary that don’t make us miscreants of society. Though sometimes I
put pajamas back on, but hey, they’re clean.
7am – My husband leaves for work and I start
writing. Sometimes I just pretend to write. It depends on how the whole writing
thing is going actually. I usually bring up my Word doc, but then also
Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or whatever else I can use to waste time
market. (At least, that’s what I tell my husband.)
9am – I have a little chat with myself—a pep talk
you might say—and really buckle down and start writing. I can write pretty fast
when I’m into a story so all the goofing around doesn’t really hurt me. The
most I’ve ever written in a day is 12,000 words, but I would say a good day for
me is 5,000 – 6,000. However, there are still some days where I just stare at
that stupid blinking cursor and wish I could reach through my laptop and tear
its mocking heart out.
11am – noon – I eat lunch somewhere around here. It
depends on if I have to work my awesome day job. (Librarian, FTW!)
Noon – If I don’t have to work, I start writing
again. And I write, and I write, and I pretend to write some more until my
husband gets home.
1pm – If I have to work, I’m off saving the world
one reluctant reader at a time.
5pm – We eat dinner. My husband asks how my day went
and sometimes I’ll blabber on and on until his eyes glaze over and then other
times I just stare and say, “Don’t. Even. Ask.” Sometimes I’ll ask him his
opinion when I’m stuck on a plot point and he’ll give it, but then we end up
arguing because I think his response is lame or it just won’t work. Then he’ll
say, “Why did you ask then?” And I always wonder why I did. I never learn. (Sometimes,
he actually says something that makes sense, but shh, that’s our little
secret.)
7pm – 10pm – We watch our shows: Bones, The Voice,
Ghost Hunters, Trip Flip, Face Off, the History Channel, the Travel Channel,
and I make him watch The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, and Chicago
Fire. He thinks I’m addicted to TV…and I probably am, but I will never admit it
to him.
10pm – I am so not a morning person when I don’t get
sleep. 10 is my strict bedtime. Any later and I’ll be a complete moody zombie
the next day.
Thanks Erin for stopping by the blog today! I can't wait to start reading Blood Hex!
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