Excerpts
from The Electric Girl
End of Chapter 1
Polly
crept softly downstairs and into the vaulted kitchen. In the window behind the
double sink, her mom’s stained-glass butterfly reflected a glint of moonlight.
Her gaze darted from the window to the sliding glass doors across the room,
behind a small round oak table. A greasy takeout box and two plates of chicken
bones on the counter—her mom’s only half-eaten—glistened in the faint light.
She paused next to the table, gripped the padded back of a dining chair, and
leaned toward the glass door. She peered out, across the backyard and into the
orchard.
A
large beacon of light flickered in the trees. It moved, as if floating. No, not
floating—walking. The intense glow, marked by dark strips of trunk and branch,
moved at a measured pace. She squinted, trying to make out an outline of . . .
whatever it was that meandered through the trees.
It’s an animal. It has to be!
She
lifted the latch on the sliding glass door and gently opened it. Chilly night
air rushed in, smelling of ozone and the earth. Her flannel nightgown billowed
in the breeze. She placed a bare foot on the smooth concrete of the patio. The
cold was sharp and shot straight through Polly, causing her to gasp, but she
forced herself to keep moving. She stepped all the way out and slid the door
back into place, almost closing it but not quite.
The
roving light in the orchard had grown larger. It was weaving between the dark
rows of trees in the distance. The undulating pace of it . . . it wasn’t human.
Whatever it was, it was moving—walking, she thought, but not on two legs.
Polly
put one foot in front of the other, compelled by her need to know. She crossed
the backyard, reaching the bumpy bare earth of the orchard floor. She steadied
herself against a tree trunk as adrenaline raced through her veins. She leaned
into the tree, hoping to conceal her figure without losing sight of the
creature, whatever it was.
She
waited, watching in both awe and terror as the glowing animal came closer. The
creature made no sound at all. Polly watched, eyes trained on the glow itself,
until finally she could make out a shape—a long, muscular torso flexed above
four knobby legs. Pointed ears flickered.
It’s a horse! A white mare! Oh my god, she’s so bright.
The
horse turned its head, flashing a spiraled horn—unmistakable against the dark
branches around them.
NO WAY!
“Polly?
Are you out there?” she heard her mom call. She turned to see her mom’s
silhouette standing in the kitchen. Her mom flicked on a light, spilling yellow
across the yard. Polly whipped around to see the unicorn again, but the orchard
had grown dark, full of silent indigo trees.
The
glowing animal was gone.
End of Chapter 2
Sparks
cut the space in front of her, dancing in a lacy ice and sapphire ring. If I
can close the portal with him inside, it won’t matter what we leave behind or
where I land. Trapping Nur-gahl was nearly impossible because Sy’kai needed
her wits about her to close a portal. If she closed it too quickly, Nur-gahl
would be left behind, free to devour an entire world, unchallenged by beings
not capable of understanding what he was let alone the depths of his hunger,
his fury. With every new passage her brain grew increasingly muddled by the
energy expenditure and the instant intake of information—the new world and all
its life being taken in at once. Her only chance to weaken and then destroy
Nur-gahl was to find a world at the moment of its death, with nothing left for
him to mimic. Sy’kai focused every molecule of her consciousness on finding
this elusive destination. Her electricity stretched into a clumsy oval as a
window to the unknown tore open. Energy exploded outward. Fresh, sweet air
rushed at her, filling her lungs with relief.
But
this new world was far from barren.
“I
smell a feast on the other side! Go ahead, jump in. I am right behind you,
ssssister!”
Rage
flared in Sy’kai’s core. She risked a glance back and saw the dark silhouette
of a gargantuan, monstrous creature racing toward her. She faced the portal
again and plunged through.
Heat
and light devoured Sy’kai’s flesh as the fissure enveloped her. What will I
be on the other side? Please, please, let this be the final shift, she
thought as the vacuum of the portal crushed her entire being.
Nothingness.
And
then she was spat out from the portal, into the dark of night. Atoms pulled
other atoms into minute clusters as millions of electric implosions sucked
matter off the ground and out of the surrounding terrain. Pure instinct flowing
from a primal mind scanned the landscape for a blueprint of sentient life. A
mental tentacle scraped and slurped, hungry for material until it finally
latched onto something in the distance and made its decision. Another explosion
crackled behind her elemental brain, but the sound hardly registered in the
morphling’s still-forming body.
Gray
matter coalesced, bone materialized, and muscles knit themselves around the
skeleton as it built itself from nothing. White light and raw energy found
purchase through four glowing hooves. Delicious soft gas kissed her forehead, a
body part that felt somehow heavy. Light hovered overhead, illuminating the way
forward through dark leaves and moist dirt.
Brightness
flooded the field ahead of her. Moments later, as her eyes adjusted, she sensed
another life form somewhere inside the light. Instinctively, she walked toward
a face she couldn’t see. A slight figure, a willowy bipedal creature with
orange-red hair slowly came into focus. And the morphling brain, still crude
with instinct and ability, reached out telepathically to evaluate this opposing
alien heartbeat.
She
turned back to the trees then as she felt the heat of another uncontrollable
transformation taking hold.
The Electric Girl:
Character Hang Out
Would you ever
hang out with fictional characters? If the answer is yes, today’s post is right
up your alley. We’re chatting with author Christine Hart – and the lead
characters of her new YA, The Electric Girl. Keep reading to meet two
incredibly unique girls – and their creator.
Christine,
what should we know about you before we meet your characters?
I wear a lot of hats. I’m a tech blogger, mother of two,
and a metalsmith with a small Etsy shop. I’m one of those ladies that decided
to go the side-hustle route when I became a mother. Because child care is
expensive and if you don’t have a boss, you don’t need permission to stay home
with a sick kid or drive someone to a dentist appointment.
On a related note, I’m not as young as I used to be. I
think it’s relevant for YA authors and as much as I love it, I’m not sure how
long I’ll be able to write for young readers. I started writing YA fiction when
I was 26 and I felt well-equipped to revisit my teen mindset. At this moment,
I’m 42. I have children of my own – the oldest of which is much closer to his
teen years than I am to mine.
And still, I relish chances to inhabit that phase of life.
They were the years I was most free to be myself without too many demands.
Hopefully I’ll know if I start missing the mark in my books.
Polly,
what do you want to tell us about how you handled yourself in this story?
I still can’t believe it all really happened. I have
these little moments where I look at the repairs on my house – or I glance at
my pendant from Psyche – and I know it was real.
Part of me thinks it’s awesome that I could be so brave
and that I fought as hard as I did. And then I think, ‘Oh, my god, that could
have gone so badly! What was I thinking?’
I feel kind of like I don’t need to make excuses for
myself anymore. I’m pretty fantastic. Nowadays, anybody that doesn’t see that
can suck rocks. My friends and I rule!
Psyche,
can you share something none of our readers learned about you in the book?
I do feel a sense of being drawn out into the universe. I
do not know if this is to continue interstellar and inter-dimensional
exploration, or perhaps to somehow continue to develop my individual
consciousness. I never pursued self-improvement for its own sake; I was a
gatherer of knowledge and then a guardian. I have a growing need to find out
what it will be like to simply exist for my personal enjoyment.
I was very fortunate to (mostly) enjoy my teen years,
awkwardness and all. I was an art/literature geek, but I rebelled too. I was a
careful student, but I did bad things. (I won’t elaborate too much on that last
point.) I struggled to balance academic and social. I felt unrequited love,
artistic let-downs, and the disappointment in self that most over-achievers
typically feel. Throw in a little imposter syndrome and that’s me in a
nutshell.
Thank you for sharing The Electric Girl with your readers. Much appreciated!
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