The
Electric Girl
by
Christine Hart
YA SciFi Fantasy, Magic Realism
Polly
Michaels is trying to forget that her mom has cancer. She keeps busy
at school and plods through a normal social life. Until a freak
electrical storm and a unicorn appear in the orchard next to her
house.
Sy'kai
wakes on an orchard floor to the smell of rotting cherries and wet
earth. She doesn't know where she is-or what she is-but she knows
something is hunting her.
Polly
recruits her friends to find the mysterious creature she saw from her
window while Sy'kai, a confused shape-shifting endling from another
dimension tries to piece her mind back together. Once the human girls
find Sy'kai (whom they nickname Psyche) the mystery unravels and the
danger facing all of them comes into focus.
A
gritty struggle ranges throughout the girls' rural hometown and in
the wild terrain around it. All while two questions hang over their
heads. Can an alien deliver a miracle for a human mother? Can a group
of teens defeat an interdimensional demon?
SNEAK PEEK
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.
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.
Located
on BC’s beautiful West Coast, I write from my suburban home outside
Vancouver. I love writing about places and spaces with
rich history and visually fascinating elements as a backdrop for the
surreal and spectacular.
In
addition to my undergraduate degree in writing and literature, my
background also includes corporate communications and design. I am a
current member of the Federation
of BC Writers and SF
Canada.
When
not writing, I have a habit of breaking stuff and making stuff – in
that order – under the guise of my Etsy alter-ego Sleepless
Storyteller. I
share my eclectic home and lifestyle with my metalworking husband,
dancing daughter, and future rocket scientist son.
$25
Amazon
1 comment:
Thank you for posting about The Electric Girl. Much appreciated!
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