Godly Heathens E-Book

H. E. Edgmon

• Herausgeber: Daphne Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 528

Beschreibung

Embark on a wild ride of reincarnated gods, past lives and intoxicating villains, where magic is real and all too dangerous, perfect for fans of Aiden Thomas. Infatuation. Reincarnation. Damnation. Gem Echols is a nonbinary Seminole teen living in the tiny town of Gracie, Georgia. Known for being their peers' queer awakening, Gem leans hard on charm to disguise the anxious mess they are beneath. The only person privy to their authentic self is another trans kid, Enzo, who's a thousand long, painful miles away in Brooklyn. But even Enzo doesn't know about Gem's dreams, haunting visions of magic and violence that have always felt too real. So how the hell does Willa Mae Hardy? The strange new girl in town acts like she and Gem are old companions, and seems to know things about them they've never told anyone else. When Gem is attacked by a stranger claiming to be the Goddess of Death, Willa Mae saves their life and finally offers some answers. She and Gem are reincarnated gods who've known and loved each other across lifetimes. But Gem—or at least who Gem used to be— hasn't always been the most benevolent deity. They've made a lot of enemies in the pantheon—enemies who, like the Goddess of Death, will keep coming. It's a good thing they've still got Enzo. But as worlds collide and the past catches up with the present, Gem will discover that everyone has something to hide.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Content Warning

Map

1 You Can Never Come Back from this

2 It Could be Worse

3 Genuinely Cannot do this anymore, Bestie

4 To See You was to Abhor you

5 Accept The Impossible

6 You Deserve Someone Nice

7 Very Rationally Afraid

8 So Long as I’m Willing to Pay The Price

9 There are no Cis Gods

10 What A Strange and Captivating Communion

11 You’re only Human

12 I Hope You Get Everything You’re Looking for

13 Fighting again, I Guess

14 Kicking and Screaming

15 Out of Time and out of Options

16 I’m Making This up as I Go

17 You Must Have Been so Scared

18 Look Who Came to Save You

19 With Each Half Bent Toward The Other’s Damnation

20 What is A Thousand Years to a God?

21 Wanting To Live Doesn’t Make Someone A Villain

22 As Bad as Therapy

23 No More Avoiding Hard Conversations

24 Worry about Yourself

25 Night and Day Have Crashed into Each Other

26 Anywhere That Isn’t Here

27 One Was Never Meant to Exist Without The Other

28 Kill Me or Walk Away

29 We Rise to Hunt Our Prey

30 Don’t Make The Wrong Move

31 Come Back

List of Characters

Acknowledgments

About the Author

AVAILABLE FROM H.E. EDGMON AND DAPHNE PRESS

Godly Heathens

Merciless Saviors (Forthcoming)

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First published in the UK in 2023 by Daphne Press

www.daphnepress.com

Copyright © 2023 by H.E. Edgmon

Cover illustration by Elena Masci

Cover design by Jane Tibbetts

Map Design by Westley Vega

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-83784-022-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-83784-023-6

1

For anyone worried you might be the villainin your own story. Maybe you are.

I think you deserve a happy ending anyway.

CONTENT WARNING

This story features a candid depiction of mental illness that, although based on my lived experiences, may make some readers uncomfortable. The main character grapples with managing their symptoms, accepting their own and a family member’s illness, some internalized ableism, and some ableism from others. There are references to self-harm and suicide.

Other potentially upsetting content includes:

• Graphic gore and body horror

• Violence, including murder and torture

• Off-page sexual violence, including experiences that involve children

• Abuse, including child abuse and off-page domestic violence

• Mentions of transphobia and racism, including references to slavery and genocide

• Animal death

1

YOU CAN NEVER COME BACK FROM THIS

So, I’m standing there, trapped in one of my favorite nightmares, discussing gender euphoria with the demon who lives rent-free in my head.

“None of them know what to think when they look at me. They can’t decide if I’m their god or their monster.”

Well, maybe not everyone’s idea of gender euphoria, but certainly mine. Boy? Girl? Unspeakable horror.

I call this place the Garden of Death, a field of dry brown grass and wilted flowers, with massive trees scorched and twisted as if struck by lightning one by one. There’s a pond at the field’s center, its surface as black and still as spilled ink, interrupted only by the glow of the red moon overhead and the occasional scaled creature flicking its tail up from the water. The garden is beautiful and horrifying and I’m never afraid here, though I suspect I should be.

Maybe my unwarranted bravery is because I’m not only here. I can see the garden, the forest, the world I’ve dreamt for myself, but I can see my bedroom, too. The black sheets on my twin-size bed rucked around my knees. My clear plastic backpack tossed by the door, unzipped and overflowing with loose, half-torn papers. Hank, the decrepit dog I’ve had since kindergarten, sleeping next to me.

The garden is an illusion—a good one. But if I focus, I can see past the smoke screen. It isn’t real.

It never feels entirely unreal, though.

The demon’s profile is facing me, his head tilted up to consider the navy sky through the lifeless tree limbs. There’s nothing about him that immediately indicates anything demonic. In fact, I think he’s the most beautiful dream-man I’ve created. Mahogany curls frame the sharp angles of his face. Full, dark pink lips perpetually smirk beneath the straight bridge of his nose.

It’s only when he turns his head toward me that I’m struck by the abyss of his perfectly pitch eyes. No whites, no irises, just a cavernous black stretched across their surface, uncannily similar to the pond in his rotting garden.

And only when he speaks do I catch a hint of a forked tongue flicking against razor-sharp teeth.

“You enjoy making them uncomfortable.” This would be an accusation from anyone else, but the demon isn’t scolding. If anything, he’s amused. “We have that in common.”

“I enjoy making them uncomfortable,” I agree. The tips of my fingers brush dead stalks of grass as I move through them, making a wide circle around my demon. “But let’s not overstate our similarities. I’ve built my dominion on wonder and yearning. You are the king of cacoëthes. Your kingdom knows only bloodshed and damnation.”

I literally do not even know what cacoëthes is. Dream-me is so big-brained and sexy.

“Bloodshed and damnation. Such a macabre image.” Though I’m almost positive I meant to insult him, the demon looks unbothered. When he tilts his head at me, a curl falls across those fathomless eyes. “Are you implying I’m a sadist?”

“I am implying nothing.” I shrug. “I am merely pointing out that your people need never debate the monstrousness of their god.”

“And yet, here you are.” His smirk becomes as sharp as a blade.

From my safe distance on the other side of his garden, I curl my fingers into my palm, nails biting into tender flesh. “And yet, here I am.”

Of course, there really isn’t such a thing as a safe distance, not from my demon.

After all, entire realities divide us, real-me and this thing I stitched together in my nightmare world, and he still won’t leave me alone.

He moves to stand in front of me, grasping my chin between his knuckle and thumbclaw, gazing down at me with a look that says he would suck the marrow from my bones if given a flicker of opportunity.

“I could argue monstrosity is in my very design. I am naught without it.” His breath ghosts against my mouth.

Dream-me grits my teeth instead of parting my lips. Big-brained but so stupid.

The demon leans in closer. He smells like old paper and warped wood and still air; like dust and decay and things long forgotten that are better left that way. “But what might it say about you, creature, that you choose to crawl into a monster’s nest?”

I want to kiss him, even if it would bleed my mouth. I’ve done it before—maybe. In all the years since I started dreaming of the demon and this whole unreal world, I’ve never really managed to follow the plot. Scenes happen out of order. Characters die and reappear. Kisses are given and taken away.

But right now, he’s looking at me like he knows what it’s like to kiss me. And like he wants to do it again, too.

Instead of letting him, I jerk free from his grip to ask, “Did you invite me here to flirt? I was under the impression something important awaited.”

“Flirting with you is always important, Magician,” he chides with another laugh. “Unfortunately, it isn’t why I summoned you.” He curls two fingers toward his palm, gesturing away from the clearing. “Come.”

We leave the garden behind, disappearing together like two shadows past the tree line.

As we walk, I’m too aware I’m not walking at all. I feel my dream body as it moves through the woods, as vividly as I feel my real body, trapped in bed. And I can’t seem to control either. Dream-me is puppeteered by someone else’s whims. Real-me can never be woken until it’s time, and I never know when that is until it’s over.

I hate this feeling, always have.

I also hate knowing where the demon is leading me, because I’d rather not venture there. We’re moving in the direction of his . . . home? Palace? Evil lair? In any case, I’ve been many times before, chronologically or not. It’s creepier than the Garden of Death, and not nearly as enchanting.

The mouth of the cave is a hollow opening carved into rock, jagged teeth at the base and top that remind me of the demon’s own. It’s dark here. I snap my fingers, the nails on one hand clicking together and sparking a bright, white light in my palm. It illuminates a long, wet hallway stretching up into the underbelly of a mountain at the edge of the woods we’ve just left behind. I know, at the end of the hall, we’ll reach a rock slab of a door, and beyond that we’ll be deposited directly into the demon’s bedroom.

We don’t make it there, though. As we creep farther along, the darkness begins to dissipate. Another light emerges at the end of the tunnel, different from the light in my hand. This one is closer to golden, a subdued yellow glow pulsing in and out. With trepidation, I clench my fist to extinguish my own light when I realize this fluttering pulse matches the beat of my heart.

There is never light in the lair, not any other time he’s brought me here, and there never will be again.

“Are you redecorating?” I tease, even as unease makes my tongue thick. Something is wrong, and I know it.

He turns his head toward me and smiles. Every smile the demon has ever given me has been awful, but there is a hidden message in this one that is particularly vile.

Dream-me swallows. Real-me tries to focus on the pop punk poster behind his head, back in my bedroom in Georgia, barely visible through the illusion.

The light is a girl.

She’s beautiful, exceptionally so, and impossibly dainty. Her eyes take up an incredible amount of her face, the widest, bluest things I’ve ever seen. Her orange curls are as long as the rest of her body, bundles tucked back with intricate golden clips and strands of gemstones. If I tried, I think I could make out every fragile bone in her body past the paper-thin layer of her porcelain skin.

The light is coming from that skin. It radiates off her to illuminate the rock dust in the air around us.

Those beautiful eyes are swollen and red, with tear tracks hanging like lanterns from the corners. Her tears aren’t like any I’ve ever seen. These are made of gold, glittering lines trailing over her round cheeks.

She’s on the ground, her hands and feet bound in black ties, another between her lips. My demon’s captive.

I’ve never seen this girl in any nightmare before, but I have the sense dream-me knows exactly who she is.

As carefully as building a bomb, I bite out, “At last, you have gone too far. You must know you can never come back from this.”

“Is that true?” Even now, the demon seems mildly amused. He corners me until my back presses against the cave wall, uneven stones digging into the notches of my spine. His hand curls around my waist. Disgust and excitement both feel like nausea. “Do you believe the others ever worried they had gone too far? As they toiled for epochs trying to bury me?”

His mouth brushes against my ear. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I can feel the whisper of fangs. “Do you think the Sun worried she’d gone too far as your scales tipped further and further out of balance?”

For a moment, the only sounds in the cave are our breathing—his too even, mine too frantic—and the mewling of the poor girl in the dirt at our feet and a dull echo replaying it all back to us.

At length, I raise my hand and press my nails to his chest, shoving him away from me. Five minuscule tears flare in the silken black of his shirt. The demon doesn’t stumble, only leans irritatingly against the opposite wall. I flick my gaze to the girl and back to him. “And what is your inspired plan, monster? To take the day for yourself?”

“The day, the night, the land and sea, and all things in between.” His smile has yet to soften. “But you think me far more selfish than I am. We will share dominion over this world, creature. Our empire will soon be beyond compare.”

The girl—the Sun?—gives a scream around the rope against her tongue.

I meet her eyes. Though she cannot speak, her golden tears say enough. Silently, she pleads with me to ease her fear. To sway her jailer. To save her.

“Why would I continue to aid you?” I demand of the demon, though I do not look away from the Sun. “Already I court the wrath of the others. I took pity on you when you came to me, whimpering like a kicked dog about their abuse, but why would I risk everything just to sate your hunger?”

“My hunger,” he seethes. “As if your black heart does not ache for every wicked gift our alliance has brought you. As if you do not hide behind my monstrousness so you might deny your own.”

The Sun’s eyes widen. I look away from her, facing him again. His smile has finally vanished, replaced entirely by teeth.

“The balance is my gift and my burden. I keep the scales. That is all I do. And this is not balance.”

“Neither is allowing them to keep me leashed!” His hand flies out, grabbing a fist of the Sun’s curls. He yanks her backward, dragging her across the dirt to press her against his legs, forcing her throat back. Over her muffled wails, he continues, “And I am not the only one they’ve kept on a chain, creature. They would suppress us for another eternity before bowing to the true magnitude of our power. But follow me down this path, and there is no force in this world that could stop us.”

Dream-me looks down at the Sun, considering the pitiful icon.

Real-me focuses on the slow-spinning ceiling fan overhead, the dirty, dog-fur-covered blades barely visible in the moonlight through my window. Real-me doesn’t want to look at the Sun. Real-me doesn’t want to be here anymore.

These dreams are rarely good. But this one is ratcheting into the worst of them.

Dream-me asks, “How will we do it?”

The demon laughs as the Sun screams.

“You know how.” He eyes me expectantly, but I say nothing. With a hint of irritation, he presses, “If we do this, we must abandon the secrets between us. Let us abandon pretext—I know of the blade.”

My heart loses its footing. “How?”

“You are not the only scheming creature to whisper in my ear, Magician. But that is a story for another night. We have little time to spare.” A spark of light ignites behind those black eyes. “Are you saying yes?”

I tilt my head to glance down the hall from where we came. Too far away to see this world’s moonlight through the cave’s opening. “The Moon will come for us.”

This time, when the Sun screams, the demon takes her jaw between his hands and twists until the bones shatter. She goes as limp and silent as a doll. “As I said—we have little time to spare. Do you have the knife?”

Dream-me looks at the Sun’s broken body.

Real-me wonders: If I throw up while I’m sleeping, will I choke to death?

From inside the soft lapel of my robe, I pull free a delicate dagger. It is perfectly weighted to the palm of my hand, fine silver with black gems along the handle. They catch the now-fading light from the Sun’s skin, glittering shadows erupting along the cave walls. Wrapped around the blade is the engraving of a snake, curled upon itself and swallowing its own tail.

The demon looks as if he might start to salivate. His forked tongue rolls against his perfect mouth. With effort, he drags his eyes from the dagger to meet my stare. “They wonder if you are their god or their monster. Let us show them you have always been both. It is time this world finally looked upon its reckoning.”

A terrible thrill curls up my belly.

With wicked magic and a sharp knife, I carve the power from the dying Sun’s body and offer it to my demonic god.

And real-me is forced to watch the whole thing, every laceration, all night long.

2

IT COULD BE WORSE

I barely wake up with enough time to hightail it to the bathroom before I upchuck last night’s chalupa combo.

In the aftermath, I drop my head against the toilet rim and groan while saliva dribbles from my mouth. My brain is wading through mud. I’m awake, I know I am, but I can’t seem to wake up. The only thing tethering me to my body is the sickly weight lodged in my stomach, keeping me curled up on the bathroom floor.

Somehow, Hank has lifted his aching, geriatric body to hobble down the hall after me. He huffs, collapsing in the doorway, eyeing me with those comically droopy eyes. His presence helps a little.

But I can’t get the dream to fade.

I’ve always known I’m not entirely okay. That may be putting it mildly. The dreams started when I was little, barely old enough to remember a time when my fantasy world didn’t exist. They’ve always been too vivid, too real, too detailed to be comfortable. They’ve never felt like other dreams, normal dreams about losing all my teeth or showing up to class naked.

But they’ve never been that bad before. That girl, filleted like a fish in my hands . . .

Fuck this. There’s no way I’m going to class today, naked or otherwise.

With maximum effort, I manage to shove my hands against the tile floor and hoist myself up. I stumble, jelly-kneed, nearly falling over Hank, but a hand on the wall keeps me from ending up on the ground again. I weave my way back toward my bedroom as my dog growls, angry with me for making him come all the way out just to turn around and go back where we came from.

Sorry, old man.

My alarm’s going off when I drop back into bed. I snatch my phone off the bedside table, shutting off the blaring, and pull up my texts to send a message to my mom. Gotta let her know I’m sick, not just ditching.

There are already seven texts waiting for me. The number elicits a mixed-bag response. On the one hand, I do love to be perceived, and I will die if I am not the center of constant attention. On the other hand, it is six o’clock in the morning.

Five are from different potentials at school, townies I’ll swap DNA with at some point but haven’t found the time to yet. One is from Mom, reminding me she took the car for an early shift and I’ll have to make the trek down to the bus stop. (No, very much I will not.) The last is from Enzo, sent at three in the morning. It’s the only one I care about.

Little DumbassGood morning, Gem, my darling, my love, my capricious little tornado locked in a cage of human flesh. It is not exactly morning as I type this, but I suspect it will be by the time it finds your eyes. Please remember to eat a real breakfast and take your medication before heading off to English class today, else your brain will short circuit and you’ll fail your very important exam. Such a thing would be rather unfortunate, especially as I would have no choice but to mercilessly mock you afterward.

Enzo Truly is my best friend in the world, a flamboyant Native trans boy in Brooklyn I’d give an organ just to hug one time. And I hate him.

I hate him in the way that I’ve never seen another person so clearly before, in the way that I’m so close to him it’s more like I’m inside of him, in the way that everyone is kind of disgusting when they’re peeled back all the way.

And anyway, Enzo borders on being incapable of acting human. No one texts like this. He doesn’t even text like this when he’s not making an effort to be the most theatrical person alive. He says he’s adhering to queer culture by being ostentatious. I think he’s uncomfortable being genuine without a performative element.

I punch off a reply, still waking up, trusting autocorrect to catch any typos.

you?? telling me to take care of myself while sending yourpoor body into another episode of sleep deprivation?? getoff my ass and go the duck to sleep, please.

I hope he doesn’t respond because he’s sleeping. And also, I hope he does respond because I always want to be talking to him.

As much as I hate Enzo, I love him more than I ever knew I could love another person. I don’t even like people. I don’t even know that I like him. But I love him so much it scares the shit out of me.

And he’s right. I really can’t skip class today. I have my English midterm, worth an outrageous portion of my grade, and Ms. VanHoos has a tree-sized stick up her ass when it comes to makeup tests.

Flunking out of my junior year would be an option if I planned to rot away in Gracie, Georgia, the rest of my life. Which I don’t. I need my GPA as sparkly as possible when I start working on applications this summer. I have to somehow be more impressive than the Manhattanite brats whose parents can buy their way in, and also convince one of these colleges to give me all their money so I can afford to go there at all. And that means actually caring about my education, at least for the next few months.

Resigned, I drag myself back out of bed, just in time for Hank to reappear in the doorway and stare at me in wounded disbelief.

*   *   *

Gracie is a town split in two. There’s the country—backwoods littered with farmhouses built before the Civil War; plantations tucked behind iron fences like keeping others away will hide the shame of what happened there; cotton fields and gator-infested swamp water nestled up together. And then there’s downtown—mom-and-pop shops selling whatever the hell artisanal soap is; public housing for the 40 percent of its citizens living below the poverty line; cookie-cutter apartments built in the last ten years in a last-ditch effort to save this place from extinction.

This town’ll be dead before too long, and we’ll all be better off for it. Gracie’s the sort of place people stay when there’s no other option, and it sure as hell isn’t somewhere people choose.

Except my mother. She grew up here, but she got out; went to college, became a nurse, started a perfect white-picket-fence life in the suburbs of Atlanta. I’d be there now, if she hadn’t moved us back here four years ago. Now we’re country people, living out in the boonies in the ancient two-bedroom she grew up in, handed over from her parents when they retired down to Tampa. She swears she’ll finish fixing it up someday. I think they told her the same thing when she was a kid.

Then, my mother isn’t exactly most people, not where the demographics of Gracie are concerned. This town is built on the bones of Mvskoke people. Her own ancestral lands—our ancestral lands, Seminole territory—are less than a two-hour drive from here. When we left Atlanta, when she said she needed to crawl back to the safety of her roots, I know she didn’t just mean the little town where she went to high school. She meant something buried deeper.

And I get it. The language spoken on these lands all those years ago is the same one that belonged to our people; it’s the same language I feel sometimes on the tip of my tongue, unable to speak it because it’s been robbed from me, but still living inside me like a muscle memory I can’t actually remember. I don’t know many people who would understand me if I said this out loud, but I swear the land itself in Gracie speaks that language.

Sometimes, it talks to me. And I get the feeling, as clumsy as my mouth is, it understands me when I talk back.

But this whole country is built on bones. I still have to survive in it. And Gracie wasn’t designed for me to survive in.

So—New York. Enzo gets it. He’s only been back to his ancestral land twice in his whole life, all because someone put an imaginary border between where he was born and where he comes from. But he’s happy in Brooklyn. He has friends, and he actually likes the adults in his life, and he . . . does things. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much. But compared to Gracie, it’s everything. I gotta get out of here.

It’s not even my mom’s fault, I guess. It’s my dad’s. If he hadn’t been crazy, if his crazy hadn’t ruined their marriage, if the divorce hadn’t snapped something inside my mom so hard she crawled back home licking her wounds . . .

But I don’t think about my dad.

Outside, the hot morning air is damp and thick. The sky is still dark, black only just beginning to lighten into purple, the silvery glow of the moon peeking over the tops of oak trees. Frogs croak obnoxiously from out of sight while little flying terrors zoom in the air overhead. The motion-sensing light struggles to flicker on when I step onto the porch.

The South isn’t as bad as people who’ve never lived here like to say it is.

Look, I’m pretty sure there are Confederate-flag-humping neo-Nazi transphobes up north, they’re just a little quieter and a lot richer than the ones here. I’ve yet to get hate-crimed in the school cafeteria—more often than not, people just aren’t sure what to do with me. Which is fine—more often than not, I’m not sure what to do with them, either.

But the food here is god-tier. Country music is so much better than most people are willing to admit. And there are few things more fun than getting in a big truck and driving too fast down a mud-soaked back road.

Doesn’t mean I want to die here. Just means it could be worse.

The mile to the bus stop is all dirt. While the sun creeps up, the air goes gray and foggy, everything hanging in that unreal space between night and day. It reminds me of my dreams. The fog is thick enough I can just barely make out what’s ahead of me, like looking at my bedroom while I’m asleep. I think of the demon, and the hair on the nape of my neck bristles. I think of the beautiful girl with glowing skin that went dark, the Sun bound in black rope, and if I’d actually eaten breakfast, I’d probably lose it.

Terrible things have happened in my dreams before. I’ve done awful things. I’ve had awful things done to me. But last night felt like a tipping point. A therapist might ask why my subconscious mind is so committed to this fantasy about blood and gore and magic and sex demons. But first I’d have to find a new therapist, and then actually tell them about the dreams at all.

I’ve never told anyone about them. I’m not that stupid.

There aren’t a lot of neighbors out here in the middle of nowhere, but down at the almost-end of the dirt road, facing each other from opposite sides of the street, are the Gracie Church of God and the Wheeler place.

Strange family. There’s a brood of kids, maybe a dozen of them, all homeschooled so they can run the farm. The house is tucked back far enough into the fog that I can only just make out its fuzzy outline. Out front, the field is filled with cows, dotted black and white and brown. I stop a couple feet short of the metal fence to try to get a look at them.

Living out in the country might not be my endgame. But I don’t think I’ll ever get past the point where I pass a field of cows and think “Look! Cow!”

It’s hard to see most of them through the haze, but one stands close enough to the road to make out. She’s beautiful, tan hide and a beige chest, a brown mouth, and a white almost-heart on the center of her forehead. Big black eyes stare back at me when I cluck my tongue in her direction. I grin, raising my hand to wiggle my fingers at her, and—

Well, she’s not actually looking at me, but beyond me. Her tail flicks, a nervous warning. I let my arm fall to my side and twist my head.

The only thing behind me is the church. The parking lot is empty, still too early in the morning for even the most dedicated parishioners. The building itself is right at the edge of the road. It’s ancient and falling apart, but then, that’s not exactly uncommon in Gracie. And it’s small, little more than an outhouse and just as impressive, with white paint chipping away on all sides to reveal the rotting wood underneath. Maybe it’s nicer inside. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never actually set foot in any church.

It’s not that I hate their god. It’s more like he’s a neighbor who’s never introduced himself to me. I see him around all the time, sometimes his dogs shit in my yard or I smell whatever he’s grilling on his back porch—but neither of us has ever tried to be friends. It’s not a big deal. You don’t have to be friends with your neighbors.

There’s a cross out front draped in fog, and a letterboard sign next to it. I assume the words are from a Bible verse.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I look back at the Wheeler field and the damn cow who’s still staring right past me. Unblinking, unmoving except for that twitching tail.

That weight in my stomach hasn’t eased since I woke up.

I turn toward the church again. Nothing. Not as far as I can see, anyway. The farther I look, the foggier things get, and the more difficult it becomes to make out any shapes. Past the empty parking lot and flimsy old building is the tiny little cemetery. From here, I can only barely make out a hint of headstones. Other than that, it’s just fog, and fog, and fog, and the shadow darting through the graveyard.

Wait.

Shadow?

Vaguely person-shaped but moving too quickly to actually be a person, a shadow darts between the tombs. My mouth goes dry. My palms tingle all the way to my fingertips.

Behind me, the cow gives a long, low cry, and the shadow begins jolting toward the road.

“Mornin’, Echols.”

The thick country twang interrupts my thoughts, slamming the brakes on my terror.

And the shadow is gone. Actually, not just the shadow. I blink once and the fog has cleared up. The graveyard is empty, but the parking lot isn’t. When did a car get there?

When I turn around, a few more cows have huddled in front of the gate. And Buck Wheeler is with them.

Buck’s the oldest of the Wheeler kids, maybe a year younger than me. He’s small for his age, built like a baby bird, with gaunt cheeks under his too-big hazel eyes. Every visible inch of his tan white skin—and there’s a lot of visible inches, since the kid is wearing nothing but flannel pajama bottoms—is dusted with freckles. He rubs his buzzed head against the side of one cow’s face and smiles at me with prominently crooked teeth, a gap between the front two.

“Morning.”

He’s a nice enough kid, but as weird as the rest of his family. Even if most people are trying to claw their way out of Gracie, I’m pretty sure the Wheelers are gonna be here generation after generation. Where else would people like them go?

“Should hurry up and get to your stop. Bus is gonna be here any minute.” He giggles, like he’s told a funny joke, though I couldn’t guess what the punch line is.

There’s no way I’m actually going to be late, though. I left with plenty of time. I glance down at my phone to double-check and—wait, how? It’s been half an hour since I left home. How’s that possible? How long was I standing here staring at nothing?

“Later, Buck!” I book it down the road, kicking up dust as I go. I think I can still hear him giggling behind me.

pretty sure i bombed the english test.so glad i dragged my ass out of bed for this.

I text Enzo at lunchtime, choking back on anger that would like me to throw a tantrum. VanHoos can eat me.

The GHS cafeteria is half inside, half out. No one sits inside unless it’s raining, so the courtyard is packed. I still have my table of one. A few people acknowledge my existence when they pass. No one tries to join me.

For the first time all day, I remember to check my unread texts. Most are awkward “hey” or “you up?” messages I wouldn’t have responded to even if I were awake when they came through. I need everyone to like me, but I have no energy to make conversation when the bare minimum is all they’re offering. I should be pursued passionately, with vigor, so I can just be hot and funny and throw in a wink every now and then.

There’s one from Indigo Ramirez that’s interesting. Indy is one of those kids who sits in the back of class with hood up and headphones in, drawing eyeballs or anime characters. Weird—but interesting. And beautiful.

The text is nothing but a selfie. In it, he’s lying stomach-down in bed, facing a full-length mirror on the nearest wall. He’s holding the phone lazily, his pose designed to look as not-posed as possible. (A goal that’s embarrassingly familiar to me.) The bare curve of his spine dips down toward the hem of his boxers, his backside arched juuuust enough to be on the wrong side of safe-for-work. Or the right side, depending on the judge.

I came out in the sixth grade. And even though Atlanta isn’t some LGBT haven or anything, I at least knew other people—kids and adults—who were like me. When we up and moved to Gracie, I was terrified of having that taken away from me. I didn’t want to be alone.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m lonely as shit. But not in the way I was expecting. The percentage of queer kids isn’t actually any smaller in a town like this. It’s just that less of them can talk about it in public. A lot of them don’t even talk about it in private—until they meet me.

I’ve been responsible for many first times since I got here. My sacred duty to the agenda, or whatever.

Indy’s yet another possibility to consider. Without thinking too hard about it, I shoot back a selfie of my own.

It’s from a week ago. I’m sitting on the bathroom sink at home, wearing nothing but denim cutoffs and a black binder. My hair, thick and long and hickory brown, is braided to show off the shaved sides. I’ve got my cheek resting on my knee, chin tilted to show off my jewelry—six piercings in each ear, a bridge, hoops in my nostril and septum, a labret, all yellow gold against my copper-tinted complexion—and the line of skin that stretches from my binder to jeans, belly and waist and hips.

I’m good at selfies. It’s hard not to be when I take a hundred at a time and delete all but one, analyzing the most infinitesimal changes.

Still. I’m hot. The students at Gracie should be grateful they get to look at me, much less anything more.

More being limited to usually decent sex. Not anything as scandalous as going on a date or hanging out in public. It’s one thing to use me to figure out their own shit, but another thing entirely for anyone to admit they might like me.

In New York, Enzo’s got all these other trans friends. They spend time at each other’s houses and casually kiss on the mouth and hang out at gay bookstores, because that’s a thing that exists there. He says they already like me.

Ugh. Whatever.

“Gem, my deity.” Ezekiel “Zeke” King suddenly appears, dropping down onto the bench across from me. His size makes the table feel tiny, when a moment ago, when I was alone, it was huge. Though my patience for cis men is thin, Zeke is one of the kindest boys I’ve ever known. He does not have a single thought in his head.

Sleeping with him would be like sleeping with a golden retriever. I can’t believe I trained him to call me a deity.

“Zeke, my boy.” I lock my phone and set it down so I can aim finger guns at his chest. “What can I do for you?”

“I been thinkin’. You’re on testosterone, right?”

“No.” The possibility of taking T isn’t off the table. Maybe it’s something I’ll pursue later, when my real life has started.

Still, I cannot wait to see where Zeke is going with this.

“Oh.” He frowns, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, shifting his giant body slightly. “But some of y’all—people, you know, they take testosterone, right?”

“Yes. Some people do.”

“Yeah! So, didya know you can’t take testosterone and play football?” His entire face screws up in thought, bushy blond eyebrows meeting over the bridge of his nose, pink lips forming a circle. He raises his hands, motioning like he’s juggling something. “Like, it’s a steroid. You’re on steroids, you know?”

“I’m not,” I remind him. “And I think the stuff they give trans people is different than what athletes take to cheat at sports.”

Maybe. Actually, I don’t know. Knowing that would require me knowing anything about sports in the first place.

“Huh. But they’re both called testosterone. . . .” He nods very, very slowly. “I don’t really know what that means. But I think I’m onto something.”

What he’s probably onto is the first connection his brain has ever tried to make.

“You know what, bud, keep thinking on it. You’ll get there.”

He smiles so big my own cheeks get sympathy pains. “You sure are crazy, Gem.”

“That’s what they tell me.” I shake my head with a smirk as Zeke throws himself onto his feet and trots away, very possibly on his way to solve the issue of trans athletes being banned from sports.

I adore him. That was exactly what I needed to not think about that English test. Maybe the day can still turn around.

Someone slides in front of me, blocking my view of Zeke’s retreating back. I tilt my head up to her face just as she’s dropping into the seat he vacated.

Suddenly, my lungs aren’t big enough to take a deep breath.

She’s the most breathtaking girl I’ve ever seen.

“Finally.” She reaches across the table to place her hand over mine. “Sorry I’m late.”

Unfortunately for us both, I’ve never seen her before in my life.

3

GENUINELY CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE, BESTIE

The girl being a stranger is only notable since Gracie is the size of a thumbtack. I would’ve remembered seeing her before.

She’s unreal. Pretty, yes, with sharp cheekbones and round lips. Her skin, a gold that reminds me of candlelight, is perfect in a way that would be annoying if she weren’t so hot. And I’d be a liar if I pretended not to notice her . . . impressive chest.

But “pretty” isn’t the right word.

I’m tall (by transmasc standards), but she’s got a few inches on me, clearing six feet. The rest of her matches her height—broad shoulders and a round belly, thick arms and wide hands. One of her muscular biceps is tattooed, the head of a bear surrounded by pink and purple flowers. She’s got giant mismatched earrings—a Ouija board in the left lobe, a sword in the right. Her eyes are mismatched, too. They’re both brown, tinged with enough cherry they could almost be red, but one of them is splotched with sage green like spilled paint across the iris. Her black curls are pulled into a half-assed bun, wild and thick enough they look likely to pop her hair tie.

The bear isn’t the only tattoo she has. Three lines run from her russet-red lower lip to the bottom of her dimpled chin. I recognize them as tribal markings, though I couldn’t name the Nation they’re from. Even if it were possible I didn’t remember her for any other reason, I would have remembered a Native student with traditional tattoos.

She’s still touching my hand. I feel like I should apologize. Or pay her.

“I was born in Alaska,” the girl continues, seemingly oblivious to my gay turmoil and the fact that we do not know each other. “It’s a long story. We give our families everything they need, and they still find ways to screw it up. You know what I’m talking about.”

I absolutely do not know what she’s talking about.

“Anyway.” She blows out a hard breath, sending a curl flying toward her forehead. It falls right back in her eyes again. “Do you have the knife?”

And just like that, I’m back in my nightmare.

“As I said—we have little time to spare. Do you have the knife?”

All morning, I’ve tried to fight my way back to normal, but I haven’t been able to shake the feeling of wrongness. I’ve just been stumbling around in a fog, like I’ve got one hand in this reality, and the other trapped beyond a door I can’t actually see. Now this?

My fingers tremble beneath hers. The girl’s bushy eyebrows crease, concern decorating her face.

She brushes her thumb against my knuckles and my breath catches its sleeve on my teeth.

Somehow, I manage to choke out an eloquent “Huh?” and yank my hand away. It’s clammy and cold and boring on its own.

A beat passes, this girl staring at me like a puzzle, until she finally mutters a curse, then, “You don’t have any idea who I am, do you?”

“Well . . . I didn’t wanna say anything.” Somehow, mouth on autopilot, I string the words together while my head explodes. “But I’m pretty sure I’d remember you if we’d met before.”

I’m a lot more than pretty sure. Everything about this girl demands my attention. I wouldn’t be able to forget her. Not unless there was something seriously, seriously wrong with me.

Which is a whole other thing we don’t have time to unpack.

“Well, you wouldn’t, because you don’t.” She rubs the tips of her fingers into her eyelids, taking a deep breath. “Okay. It’s fine. Death and battle aren’t here yet. We have time to fix this.”

I think she’s talking to herself, not me. Still. “Who and what, now?”

My dad, the last time I saw him, was making about as much sense as this girl. I was twelve at the time, and didn’t really have the emotional maturity to grasp what was happening, still blaming myself and my coming out for the way my family fell apart. I’d tried making sense of his rambling, tried to understand what he wanted, and felt guilty when my mom finally took me away from him.

“Look, normally, I’d give you more time to process, but we don’t have time. I have no idea where the knife ended up, and if one of them finds it before we do, it’s game over. I need your help. And that means you have to remember. Have you at least been having the dreams?”

The dreams.

The world seems to crawl in slow motion, background noise falling away until it’s just the two of us here in the courtyard. I can see my classmates, but only through a filter, like a photograph where they’ve all been blurred out and this girl, this weird, cryptic girl, is the only thing with any sharpness left.

Saliva bursts along my tongue, nausea rolling through my gut and creeping up my throat. Goose bumps collect along my arms. Tremors burst under the surface of my skin.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” This is a lie, of course. But what else am I supposed to say?

“The dreams, Gem.” How does she know my name? “The ones of the Ether. The ones that feel like you’re still awake.”

The Ether bounces around in my head like the screensaver on an old DVD player, changing color every time it hits the side of my skull. It’s completely unfamiliar . . . but it isn’t, maybe . . . but I can’t remember where I might know it from.

I realize, discomfort bubbling in my gut, that talking to her—or being talked at by her—makes me feel the same way I do when I’m dreaming. Like everything is happening in a fog I can’t quite pick my way through. Like the moment is happening to me. The sinking feeling of unreality gets comfortable in my chest, stretches out into my limbs and makes me heavy.

I think about the shadow moving in the graveyard this morning, the one that disappeared in an instant along with the fog.

What if my dreams really are starting to bleed into my waking life?

What if I plucked this girl right out of my head?

Bile claws at the back of my mouth, and I grit my teeth. No. I don’t accept that. I won’t. I force myself to blink through the filter, to look at the people around us.

A group of girls at a nearby table nods in our direction, likely making commentary about her appearance. A boy in a letterman jacket hovering by the trash cans stares at her with his mouth partway open.

Other people can see her. She isn’t a dream. I’m not hallucinating. I’m fine.

Well, no. Something is still very wrong. But I’m not as bad off as I could be.

“I. Do not know. What you’re talking about.” It tastes like a lie, and I don’t understand.

Something softens in her expression. She frowns, barely shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I know this sucks. You deserve a gentler introduction. And I hope one day soon you’ll realize that I’m only doing this because I love you.” She takes a deep breath. “So. My name is Willa Mae Hardy. And everything else aside, honey, it’s really good to see you again.”

My panic nausea makes room for a small rush of sapphic nausea at her words.

Anyway.

Nothing about the name Willa Mae Hardy rings a bell, not even in the same weird, detached way the Ether did. I know I’ve never met her.

So, how does she know me? How does she so clearly know me?

As if she hadn’t proven that already, her next question is “So, what the hell happened to your dad?”

It isn’t even just the question that takes me off guard. It does, and I hate it, but more than that, it’s the way she asks the question. Completely unbothered, no hesitation, like we’re best friends catching up on school gossip. Not at all like she’s a complete stranger who just asked to unlock some of my level-ten trauma.

But how does she know anything happened to my dad?

I dunno, Gem, maybe the same way she knows about the dreams?

No. She can’t know anything about me. She’s crazy, and rambling, and my brain is leaping to make connections. I’ve never heard of the Ether, and she has no idea about my nightmares.

Not even Enzo knows. How would I go about explaining to anyone that I spend my nights trapped between two worlds? Watching visions bleed into reality? Considering my family history, I know exactly how that conversation would go.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sound like a parrot.

“Well, it’s just you and your mom, right? But your dad’s not dead, and he’s the one with the Campbell blood. If you don’t have your memories, and the knife’s lost, he must’ve been cut out of the loop. What happened to his parents?”

My eyes rise to her face. She’s watching me with a soft expression, genuinely curious instead of critical.

Campbell blood.

I never met my dad’s parents. They died young, leaving him and his little brother orphans when they were still in elementary school. I’ve heard plenty about them, though. His mother was Diana Echols—maiden name Campbell.

That can’t be a coincidence. At a loss, I answer honestly. “Freak accident. He was just a kid.”

“Oh.” She nods, clucking her tongue. “Yeah. Record keeping’s not a perfect system. Families fall apart, things go missing. I almost got lost. If my grandfather hadn’t found me . . .” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “Anyway, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

Is she offering her condolences for my dead grandparents? Like, thanks, but it’s not as if I had the chance to miss them.

I think their deaths did a number on my dad, though.

“It’s . . . fine?”

“Well, no, it isn’t. If they’d lived, you’d know who I am instead of sitting there having this little crisis. Now we have to play catch-up. And I don’t think you’re going to like it.” She sighs, making a fist and propping her chin up on her knuckles. “But it will be fine. Once we have the knife back. Once we get away from Poppy and Marian. Things will be okay then. We’ll be all right.”

She sounds like she’s trying to give me a pep talk, or maybe convince herself of whatever it is she’s saying, but . . . okay.

“Who are Poppy and Marian?” I don’t want to feed into the delusion, but I don’t actually know what else to do.

“The worst. Both of them.” Willa Mae rolls her eyes. “Hey, I don’t suppose I could convince you to come to my place after school today, huh?”

I.

What?

“Um.” My head pounds. “I . . . would rather not.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured. Unfortunately, we’re crunched for time, so getting you to believe me might require some trauma.” It would sound like a threat—it definitely should sound like a threat, she’s planning to traumatize me—except she sounds genuinely upset. “If there were any other way . . . but we have to find the Ouroboros.”

Ouroboros. She says the word and my heart beats like it’s trying to run away. Why does that sound familiar?

Willa Mae’s still talking. “It’s not like anyone eased me into anything. At least I’m not strapping you down in a torture chamber.”

“I’m sorry, what? Did that happen to you?”

She shrugs, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. Maybe she would answer me, but the bell blares at the same moment, cutting off whatever was coming.

Around us, the rest of the student body starts to head to class. I can’t move.

Willa Mae stands and tightens a hand around the black strap over her shoulder. The look she gives me is long-suffering, even though it has no right to be. “Just be careful. Try not to run into death before I find a way to bring you back, Magician.”

And then she’s gone, disappearing into the throng of people, nothing but a few inches of her head visible until even that vanishes inside.

I’m alone when I finally sputter, “Magician?”

I’ve been called that many times before. Just never while I was awake.

“You are not the only scheming creature to whisper in my ear, Magician.”

Fuck. This.

I can’t do today. I gave it my best shot, dragging my ass to school to take the English test I probably failed anyway, and now . . . now what? I don’t know. Whatever is going on, I’m not going to figure it out while my brain tries to ooze out of my ears. What I need, and all I want, is to go home, crawl into bed, and force Hank to take a nap with me. A real nap, uninterrupted by sharp teeth or golden blood or beautiful and unhinged people.

I text Enzo again.

genuinely cannot do this anymore, bestie.i’m leaving for the rest of the day. call me whenyou get home from clown college.

Always best to end any messages about my questionable grasp on sanity with a joke, so he knows everything’s totally fine. Clown college means the performing arts high school where Enzo’s a senior.

If anyone spots me slinking from the courtyard toward the parking lot, they don’t say anything. I don’t have the car today, so I can’t actually go home. But right next door is the Piggly Wiggly, where I can drown my sorrows in Flamin’ Hot Munchies until a twelfth grader with a half day wanders over and I convince them to give me a ride.

Mom’s home by now. I could call her and tell her I’m sick, ask her to come get me.

I’d rather loiter at the grocery store.

Halfway across the parking lot, a breeze kicks up, sending hair across my face. I snatch the elastic band off my wrist and tug it into a ponytail.

The breeze brings with it a nasty burst of cold, too. Cold. It’s March in the Deep South. It doesn’t dip below the sixties, and it was hot as hell when I left my house this morning. So, explain why my nipples are stabbing through my sports bra right now.

At the edge of the lot, where I can start to make out the faded Piggly Wiggly sign through the trees surrounding the campus, asphalt morphs into dirt. It always smells like a dispensary out here, the spot where stoners hang out when skipping class. Not that I’d have firsthand knowledge of that.

As soon as my shoes hit dirt, my stomach churns again. Saliva threatens to gag me. The wind carries an awful smell right to me, and I dry-heave under the assault.

Where the hell is it coming from? I look back toward the school, searching the parking lot for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. But I swear I’ve smelled something like this before, when field mice get in our house and die in traps in the pantry, and . . .

Death. It smells like death.

As soon as the thought occurs to me, the smell is gone. I blink into the glaring sun, watching the doors of the school through half-open eyes. My stomach settles. It even seems a little warmer.

Huh. Weird.

I turn back around, and there’s a girl standing so close I could reach out and touch her.

She looks ill. That’s the first thing I think. She’s the palest girl I’ve ever seen, with translucent skin the color of bone. I can make out the blue and purple veins in her arms. Her lips are gray and chapped, limp blond hair hanging to her chin, ice-blue eyes sunken into her face.

Her outfit doesn’t match her at all. White tights with plastic purple and yellow daisies sewn onto them. A striped crochet dress in varying shades of pink, reminiscent of the lesbian flag if you squint. Blue hearts painted around her eyes.

Neither of us moves. Me, because I’m trying to coax my heart to crawl out of my ass. Her, because she might actually be a limited-edition life-size Corpse Barbie.

Finally, I say, “Um . . . hi.”

When the girl smiles, her dry lips crack until they bleed.

She takes a step toward me. I’m surprised by how gracefully she moves, considering she looks like the wind might knock her over.

“How did you pick the name Gem?” Her voice doesn’t match her face, either. It’s deep and lyrical, surprisingly beautiful to listen to. Her accent isn’t Southern. I wonder where she’s from. “See, the poppy flower, it’s been used to represent death for a long time. That’s how I picked mine. But Gem. Gem, Gem, Gem. It isn’t your legal name, is it?”

It isn’t.

My mom isn’t perfect, but she could be a lot worse. She never misgenders me, has never tried to force me to be less of myself. When I came out and extended family had issues, she went to bat for me, always made it clear she’d pick me over them.

But. Of course, there’s a but. Anything legal or medical, like changing my name or going on hormones, she’s making me wait for. In case I change my mind. In case, after enough meds and therapy, I wake up one day and I’m not me anymore.

She’s not transphobic. She just thinks I’m only trans because I’m sick in the head.

Whatever. My mommy issues aren’t the point right now.

“Excuse me?”

“You know what it makes me think of?” She takes another step. I step back, trying to keep space between us. “Gemstones. You know, like crystals? Some humans think those little rocks can do magic. Do you believe that, Gem?”

“Uh . . . I don’t know.”

Am I cursed? First the girl in the courtyard, now this. Did I sleep with an evil witch’s boyfriend?

She tilts her head, and I swear those too-blue eyes glaze over. “I totally don’t. Like, how could a stupid rock be more powerful than me, you know?”

“Um . . .” My throat is so tight I can barely speak. Adrenaline thrums through my muscles, urging me to run.

This isn’t right. I don’t know what this is, but I need to get away. “Who are you?”

“Oh, there are so many ways I could answer that. Like, my name is Poppy White, and I’m a sophomore who just moved here from Nebraska.”

So much for Gracie not being the sort of town people choose. That’s two new girls in the same day.

Wait. Poppy. Willa Mae mentioned a Poppy.

It was a warning.

I don’t have time to dwell on the girl’s identity. She moves toward me again, so quickly this time that I don’t have the chance to back away. She’s faster than she looks—and stronger, I realize, as she fists my shirt and yanks me closer. I wrap my hand over hers, trying to push her away, but I can’t.

“And,” she drawls, voice suddenly louder, suddenly deeper and more powerful than it was seconds ago. “I am the avenging angel sent to read the record of your sin. I am this story’s inescapable epilogue. I am the god of death and I have not forgiven you.”

Oh.