Riverland

Wilde Fran Wilde

Description

When things go bad at home, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor's bed, telling monster stories. Often, it seems those stories and their mother's house magic are all that keep them safe from both busybodies and their dad's temper. But when their father breaks a family heirloom, a glass witch ball, a river suddenly appears beneath the bed, and Eleanor and Mike fall into a world where dreams are born, nightmares struggle to break into the real world, and secrets have big consequences. Full of both adventure and heart, Riverland is a story about the bond between two sisters and how they must make their own magic to protect each other and save the ones they love.

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 09 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683354826
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wilde, Fran, 1979- author.
Title: Riverland / by Fran Wilde.
Description: New York, NY: Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams, 2019. | Summary: When their parents fight, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide, whispering stories and hoping house magic will protect them, until the night a river carries them to a place of dreams and nightmares.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018030956 | ISBN 9781419733727 (hardcover with jacket)
Subjects: | CYAC: Family problems-Fiction. | Sisters-Fiction. | Magic-Fiction. | Fantasy.
Classification: LCC PZ.1.W5328 Riv 2019 | DDC [Fic]-dc23
Text copyright 2019 Fran Wilde
Jacket illustrations copyright 2019 Robert Frank Hunter
Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura
Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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For my sister.
Once upon a time . . .
Why do you always start like that? Why not someday, or tomorrow?
Because that s how stories start, Mike. They re already over when you tell them. They re safer that way.
Fine. But make this one scary.
Okay. Once upon a time, two sisters weren t very good. One sister was sent far away until they could both learn not to back talk or bring trouble, not to get mad or break things, not to cry.
Didn t anyone notice the sister was gone?
No, because their parents replaced her with a better version. One who didn t do bad things.
That s too scary, Eleanor. Does your head hurt?
It doesn t hurt.
You always say that.
If I say it, it s real. Like a magic spell.
The sister who was sent away-what happened?
She made a magic spell that let her visit home whenever she wanted. But their father discovered that she kept coming back, because he d been replaced too, by a troll, long ago, and trolls can smell kids really well. He made the girls mother, who was a witch-a mostly good one-magic the house to keep the disappeared sister out and the other sister safe. And to keep anyone else from noticing that a troll and a witch lived in a nice house and not under a bridge somewhere.
You sure it doesn t hurt?
Nothing hurts. Are you going to listen or not?
I m listening.
But the remaining sister knew that, when she followed the rules, sometimes her mother s magic would ease and the other sister could come home. She would hide under the bed and wait until her sister appeared. And they d stay in that safe place, where the troll and the witch couldn t find them. They d stay until morning whispering their own magic spells. Trying to get them to work.
Eleanor, I don t want anyone to go away.
Poppa was just joking, Mike. I m not going away.
Can I say our spell now?
Not yet. Shhhh.
. . .
They re loud tonight.
It s the stress. He ll be better soon. Momma said.
Keep telling the story.
The sisters stayed together for a long time in this way. But there was a price for these visits. If the one sister stayed past sunrise, she had to disappear for good, or they d both disappear.
I don t like that story. Tell a better one. A better spell.
You can try yours now, if you want.
Now?
Yup.
Someday . . . our real parents will come for us.
CHAPTER ONE
HOUSE MAGIC RULES
Some days, my sister and I could sense trouble coming.
Other days, like the weather, it caught us by surprise.
Today, from up the hill where the school bus dropped us off, our house looked trouble-free. Safe.
Momma had been busy.
The blue clapboard box with its wooden shutters anchored our cul-de-sac like it had been on Riverland Road forever, which it pretty much had. Mike s small purple bicycle leaned on my larger blue one in the shade of the garage. Our lawn, smooth all the way to the shoreline and carefully cleared of leaves, wrapped the house like arms with hands clasped at the pale concrete driveway.
Everything seemed perfect.
Better than perfect: The house didn t look magicked at all.
But today still felt like trouble. That s why I wasn t in a rush to go home.
If I was lucky, Pendra would invite me over. Her house was closer to our bus stop.
I formed the beginning of a wish-to be honest, it was more of a spell-in my mind. A spell that would turn Pendra toward her house, not mine. Two words: Please, Pen .
But Pendra Sarti had other ideas. She was looking down the hill too.
We always go to my house, she said like she d read my mind. We haven t been to yours since summer. You always have some excuse. And you still have my book. We ll get it and then we can sit on the dock and work on our science posters until the rain comes.
As the bus, empty now, rolled away from our development, Pendra adjusted her backpack and ignored my frown. She started down the hill.
Spells never worked that well for me. Not even in the stories I told Mike, even if she did believe them.
And it had been months since Pendra had come over. Poppa was trying to buy more of the land around us in order to grow the development he d named Riverland, after the road we lived on. He was stressed out a lot. That shouldn t have mattered, but it did. We had so many new rules.
The dock, Pendra s favorite place to sit, was just visible behind the house. The old wooden frame was mostly barnacles and cracking planks. Once, a dinghy had bobbed beside it. I d seen pictures. But now, as river and wind whipped together into meringue-peaked waves, the dock swayed. The leaves on the trees near the house flipped over to their silver sides.
Storm s going to be here too fast, I said hopefully, catching up to her as we neared her house. If it rained, Pendra and I couldn t sit outside. We d better wait. Your house instead.
But Pendra shook her head. Yours. Her elbow poked me in the side, nudging me down the hill. Mine s always a mess. Yours? Your mom waves a hand and cookies appear. My brothers are home and loud. Mike s not there to bother us.
I bristled about Mike. Bothering is what little kids do. I don t mind it.
You minded it this morning on the bus. You got so angry.
That was low. Mike s big mouth was why Pendra was insisting on going down the hill now.
She was just kidding about the house. From where I stood, the beginnings of the late fall sunset hit a second-floor window and reflected off the blue fishing float-what the locals called a witch ball-hanging on the landing.
Everything in its place.
Besides, no one s home. Momma had taken Mike to buy shoes after school. And a house rule was no surprise guests, especially if Momma wasn t home. I reached for excuses. Poppa s working hard on the permits for the Lawton Farm.
Definitely no cookies to be had at the wave of a hand today.
El, no one s at my house either. What s the difference? Pendra was impossible to refuse when she wanted something. And what she wanted right now was to brainstorm science projects at my house. Preferably with cookies. Where she could look for magic. Mike said . . .
I knew what Mike had said.
She d blurted to her friend Kalliope on the bus that morning: Momma s doing house magic and I get to help her .
I d kicked the back of the seat and she d gone quiet. Kalliope had shrugged it away with an I bet you don t and Mike hadn t replied.
All better.
But Pendra had heard. And she was as interested in magic as anyone.
The difference, magic or no , I wanted to say now, is that your house is easy. Mine is hard .
There were rules for my house Pendra didn t understand. Only my sister, Mary (everyone called her Mike, except Poppa), and I knew them all. Bringing Pendra home would break a rule, and rules helped the magic go.
At least, that s how I explained it to Mike when she was upset. No rules, no magic. No magic, everything would break and stay broken. And in our house, broken things disappeared.
I crossed my arms over my fleece jacket and cupped my elbows in my hands so the fuzz warmed my palms. I rocked a little on my heels, and the road grit ground beneath the thin rubber soles of my sneakers.
We can t have surprise guests, I said. It was a big rule, based on how many times Momma had said it to both Mike and me. And the difference is your house is noisy and happy even when no one s home. Mine s all creaks and groans, I finally argued. I wasn t lying. Our house was especially loud when the magic wasn t working.
I wished Mike were here. Pendra and I would go to her house then, at least until dinner. Problem solved.
Or else Pendra would try to drag more magic stories out of Mike. Problem not solved.
But Mike wasn t here and the temperature was falling fast. Gray clouds gained a greenish tint over the rough water. The smell of a dead fish carried almost all the way up the hill.
Two gulls cut tight circles over the beach but kept getting blown off course.
And Pendra kept walking away from her house and the bus stop. Her feet aimed past the three houses on the hill, down to the end of the street, to my house.
I wasn t one bit surprised my spell didn t work. They rarely did for me. And rain wasn t enough to put Pendra off.
I tried stubborn next. Stopped where I was and raised an eyebrow. Tilted my chin, leaning back towar