A sneak peek at the second book in the bestselling Forever Girl Series, which has now been optioned for FILM! This book is due to release later this year. A link to sign up for release notification is in the comments.
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ONE
August 1961
Nobody wants to talk about what Pa did to me.
Mama and I sway on the porch swing, drinking the sun-brewed iced tea she made with her Tetley tea bags, sweetened with cane sugar and chilled with ice from our cracked freezer tray. We talk about the weather. Well, Mama talks about the weather. If it were up to me, there would be no talking.
During our chats, her gaze flits around, never settling on anything for much too long. Especially not my stomach. She must not like shutting her eyes, either, as lately there are always dark circles under them. Maybe the Darkness won’t let her sleep anymore.
But does she see those shadow men the same as I do, or have they become a part of her?
“Nice day today,” she says.
The words mean to fill the air between us.
Life has stood still since the Darkness came, as though time itself were as lazy as the summer days are long. I watch over the muted day and pale sky, the dirt roads and faded grass. Forever in the sun, the dusty, bluish-white paint peels away from the decaying oak boards of our porch. The muggy air, dead of a breeze, makes my skin itch.
The weather’s just another pressure in my life, suffocating me, and the swell of my uterus against my lungs isn’t helping.
If I had a friend to confide in, they might say I should give the baby up, that it would be a reminder of all that Pa has done. And maybe they would be right. But once upon a time, Mama told me that all babies are a blessing from God, and I could use a blessing.
Mama tucks a grayish blonde strand of hair into her sunhat. It’s not fancy. Just something she wears to hide her unkempt hair.
“Georgia summer,” she says, all breathless-like. “That’s why I like it here. I like these Georgia summers.”
I, however, do not like Georgia summers. They smell like animal piss and cut grass and wet concrete cooking in the sun. But it’s not just the summers. I don’t like anything about Georgia. Georgia is a black hole—the home of the Darkness. Home of the shadows that scurry in my periphery, that always stay where I can’t look them in the eye. Only the edge of my vision catches the figures gliding past, but they are gone the moment I turn to look.
They are here now, too. Always. Ever since that car accident my Pa and I should have died in all those years ago.
I glimpse a shadow behind the window, inside our house, peeking through the blinds. I turn my head, and there’s nothing there, nothing but the blinds moving lightly. Another shadow crouches behind Mama’s rose bushes on the other side of the porch rails. This shadow-man crowds the edges of my vision, watching me. If I look straight at him, he’ll be gone, so instead I watch in this way, from the corners of my eyes. Not afraid anymore. Only aware.
When I’m tired of being stared at, I glance over. All that’s there are Mama’s strawberry plants, about to be overcome by the vines crawling along our porch, and a few bumble bees buzzing as they mate in the air above. A praying mantis feasts on a butterfly’s cocoon attached to one of the porch spindles, just beside where an old rope loops around one of the rail posts. In the crawlspace below, animal traps snuff the light of small and innocent creatures. Sometimes I hear them scratching to get free.
