Ironwood Skin

Red Dust and Broken Things

Chapter One:

Nova Harlow hated the sound of fluorescent lights. Not just the buzz - the tone. That high-pitched, twitchy hum that wormed into her skull like a drill she couldn't turn off. The lights at PackRight Home Goods had been on the fritz for weeks, blinking and whining above her head as if mocking her decision to get out of bed.

The manager vest clung to her back with sweat. Her boots were sore on the inside. Her knees had been throbbing since 7 a.m., and it was only just past noon.

"Red," one of the teenage cashiers called her that because of the hair - a tangled blaze of red curls piled high and heavy. "There's a customer screaming about lawn furniture again."

Nova didn't respond right away. She was standing in Aisle 12, staring at a broken display of patio chairs she'd already fixed twice. One was tipped over again, like it had fought back overnight and lost.

She sighed through her nose. "Tell 'em I'm on my way."

Her voice was low and steady - the kind that didn't need to yell to be obeyed. Still, the girl flinched a little, nodded, and disappeared back toward the registers.

Nova straightened the chair, then the next. Her fingers brushed the steel, and she felt it - that familiar twinge in her wrist. The one that reminded her she didn't belong here, not really. She was made for scaffolds, for drills, for ladders and weight. Not this. Not discount patio displays and a name tag that itched her collarbone.

But she was a mother. That meant you did what needed doing, no matter how far it dragged you down.

By the time she handled the customer (who turned out to be less angry and more confused), she'd already had two migraines coiled behind her eyes and a text from Lilith that read:

"Grandma needs you. Says the basement's leaking again."

Of course it was.

Nova stared at the message and didn't answer. Instead, she tucked her phone back into her vest pocket and moved toward the back office, trying not to think about how much she hated that house - or how many pieces of herself she always left behind when she went there.

After her shift, she picked up Axel from school. He climbed into the car quiet, the way he always did, clutching his sketchpad like it was a shield.

"You okay, bud?" she asked, starting the engine.

He nodded without looking up. "They asked me if I believed in demons today."

Nova blinked. "Who did?"

"The other kids. Said I draw weird stuff. Said I smell like dirt."

She swallowed the lump in her throat and glanced at him in the mirror. His face was pale, thoughtful. Too thoughtful for eleven.

"What'd you say?"

"I said demons don't scare me. But people do."

Nova didn't have a response to that. Not one that wouldn't make her cry.

The Harlow house sat on Ash Ridge Road, just beyond the last curve of pavement where the streetlights thinned out. Her mother's porch was full of dead plants and wind chimes that hadn't chimed in weeks. The air smelled of wet wood and old vinegar.