A Great Storm Rising

Marty Kingsbury

Description

Teddy’s eccentric father and kid brother Adrian go missing, so Teddy asks her new love Evvy for help, not knowing they’re about to walk into a supernatural storm.
Teddy Carson and her kid brother, Adrian, grew up in the shadow of their dad’s mental illness. Doctors labeled him schizophrenic. Or narcissistic. Or maybe bipolar. Their dad denies all of it, claiming the doctors know nothing and that he has superpowers that can guide the winds and the rains.
Lately, their dad has been doing better: staying on his meds, getting up with the sun. So when Teddy wakes up to an empty house and a note—“Took Adrian to school. Love, Dad.”—she revels in her freedom. She can walk her dog in peace and make her own lunch for school. And when her English teacher rails against Prospero’s mighty storm in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, she laughs. It’s just a play, after all.
When Adrian and their dad don’t show up that day or the next, she is at a loss. She recruits her new love, Evvy Martinez, to help her find them both. But Prospero’s magic is on every page she turns, and this isn’t a play. In Crystal Falls, Massachusetts, almost anything is possible.

Sujets

• Shakespeare
• LGBTQ
• The Tempest
• William Shakespeare
• La Tempête
• Fiction
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 04 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665722421
• Langue: English

Extrait

A GREAT STORM RISING
MARTY KINGSBURY


Copyright © 2022 Marty Kingsbury.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
Archway Publishing
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2243-8 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2242-1 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022907559
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/25/2022
CONTENTS
Prologue
Time To Get Up
Farewell To The Falcon
Lunch, Finally
Late Bus
The Detective Arrives
The Tempest
Maybe It Was All Just A Dream
The Snow Heals Everything
In Search Of A Clue
Something Like A Clue
?
Storm In The Mountains
Driving
Kim
Red
A New Me
Road Trip
A Lost Soul In Search Of Her Brother
Natural Or Supernatural?
More Twisting And Winding
Under The Apple Tree
Uncle Tony
The Brothers’ Reunion
Hunting
Yellow
Five Chairs
Could This Be Real?
Blue Light
Home
Dazed
Prospero’s Last Stand
Under The Guilder Tree
Enough Is Enough
The Last Log Scene
Special Thanks

I am a fool
To weep at what I am glad of.
— The Tempest , Miranda, act 3, scene 1
The people who need mercy the most
Are the ones who deserve it the least.
— Shakespeare Behind Bars
PROLOGUE
“Have you always known?”
“That I’m a lesbian? Yeah. Pretty much. Well, I really figured it out when I was twelve and kissed a boy at summer camp.”
Evvy takes my hand, but then she doesn’t. She hands me a paddle, and we are in a canoe with a yellow sail and a pink tiller. She’s guiding the boat, and we’ve caught the wind in the middle of the river. The river carries us where we want to go. The sky is as blue as a dream.
Until a storm rises up. Like a cornered tiger, it roars and swallows our little boat, and we’re clinging to the sides, and cold water is splashing, filling the boat, and all around me, everything is sinking.
And I am swimming, looking for the surface, but everywhere I swim, I sink deeper into the water. Evvy! I’m paralyzed. I turn my head and look for her. I want more than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life to say yes to her, to tell her I love her, to mean every inch of it, and to promise I won’t hurt her with my endless lies and swirling confusion.
But then, wow! Look! It’s my dog, Arpeggio! Swimming to me. Hi, Arpeggio! My words bubble up. Sea turtles float by, yellow ones with pink tails, lumbering in their hefty shells but so graceful. Evvy, look! And I point. And then it’s dolphins—green with white bellies. They float upward, out of the water, and I follow them, breaking through the surface of the water, gasping for air.
CHAPTER 1

TIME TO GET UP
“Adrian?” I knock on my brother’s door, last night’s dream a wet, hazy memory. “Time to get up. Monday morning, and we have another week of school.”
The house is totally quiet. The only sound is Arpeggio padding down the wooden stairs, his dog nails tapping away.
“You need a manicure.” Arpeggio looks up at me and wags his stumpy little tail. “Would you like that? A nice mani-pedi?”
I knock again. “Come on, Adrian. I’m too tired for games this morning. Get up.”
But still it is quiet.
I pry the door open. Just a squeeze. The lights are off, but the morning sun wriggles through the curtains and rests on his floor. His pajamas are neatly folded at the foot of his bed. I open the door some more. “Adrian?” My voice bounces off the wall of the empty room. He’s not here.
“That’s odd,” I say to no one. I close the door and tiptoe down the stairs. I don’t know why I need to be so quiet, but in a quiet house, a quiet footfall seems right.
“Dad? Mom? Is anyone home?”
My words bounce off these walls too.
“This is really weird.” I turn on the lights in the kitchen. It smells of cookies, but there are no cookies on the counter. No dishes in the sink. Arpeggio sits tall by the door, brushing his stubby tail across the dusty floor. But other than that, nothing. No one. I touch the oven. Maybe it’s warm from baking. Or maybe it’s warm from the heat in the kitchen. I can’t tell. The curtains are still closed.
“I’ve read stories, you know, where one morning you wake up and you’re the only person alive on the whole planet, and you have to figure out how to live now that, like, everyone has disappeared.”
I turn on the light to the basement. It flickers and then comes on. I creep down the stairs and open the door to the garage. Both cars are gone. I don’t know if that’s good news or not. I climb the stairs again. The light flickers again when I turn it off.
“Where are they?”
But there on the kitchen counter by the stove, under the World’s Best Dad coffee cup that I gave my dad like ten years ago when he was still a good dad, is a flimsy slip of paper. Just a corner. A pencil rests in the cup. It’s a note. And Dad’s near illegible handwriting:
No need to worry. Mom’s gone to work. I took Adrian to school. Love, Dad.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” I laugh, and my heart starts to beat again. “Look, Arpeggio. Dad took Adrian to school! OK then. We are off morning patrol. Do you want to take a walk?”
Arpeggio wags his tail again, running to the door and turning circles. Arpeggio is a three-year-old cocker spaniel, all black with a thin white tuxedo stripe, which starts at his chin and disappears into his belly. He has a stout tail and ears that hang down to his elbows. His joy is infectious. I grab my jacket and his leash from the hooks in the hallway and open the door. “Voila, my puppy.” And out he runs.
The morning is cool and clear. It’s 6:35 a.m. We set the clocks back this weekend, so, for a few brief days, we are up in the morning light. The sun peeks over the horizon. Pink and lavender ribbons wrap around the trees. The sky is going to be that deep, crystal, azure blue that makes everything sharp. Clear edges. Clean lines. We skip down the rickety stone steps, and the soft yellow leaves of autumn maple trees rustle in the breeze. Today I am even up before Evvy, my sweet girlfriend—the word still flutters in my stomach -- texts in for the morning wardrobe report. No messages. It doesn’t matter. Dad is off with Adrian. Mom is off to work. And I am as free as a dog at play. I don’t have to get my little brother dressed and fed. I don’t have to lead him down these treacherous steps and help him onto the bus. I don’t have to talk to my dad, who is usually, by this time, up making some gargantuan breakfast that I can’t eat. And I don’t have to answer to my mom’s ten thousand demands.
Arpeggio stops at all his usual spots, inhaling the roots of trees, the leaves of shrubbery, and the blades of grass. Something snaps behind me, like a twig breaking. I turn, but no one is there. Just my shadow. A blue jay calls from a nearby tree. A chipmunk chirrs and darts across the street. I wave to the horses that are just emerging from the barn for another day out in the field, munching grass. They look at me, blink their big, watery eyes, and lumber into the thin morning sun.
This is pretty amazing. A morning where I don’t have to take care of everyone in this stupid house. A morning where I can walk my dog like a regular person, make a little breakfast, get dressed in peace.
“What are you wearing?” That’s Evvy texting in. Right on time.
“The same sweats I wore to bed. And you?”
“Very funny. Bus stop in thirty minutes.”
And, except for a tiny creepy feeling that lingers in the back of my head, I am officially awoken from my mini-infinity of a morning with no responsibility.
CHAPTER 2

FAREWELL TO THE FALCON
First period is English. Evvy and I were supposed to be in the class together this year. We even had a little bit of time with me here by the windows and her right beside me, and we could pass each other notes, which, of course, I did, but she never did ’cause she’s such a good student. But then, last week, they up and transferred her to art. They said they want her to work with the freshmen on some something or other. I really should listen to her better. And she was super excited about it. I remember that much anyway. But when she told me she had to change her schedule, I kind of glazed over. I was so sure they knew, that everyone knew, that she kissed me, I mean, really kissed me, and I really, really kissed her back, and that was why they moved her out. But she said it wasn’t that at all, that this was a chance, a real chance to do her art, and she’d see me at lunch. That’s wonderful for her, but once again, I’m in here on my own.
This is the first time in I don’t know how many years that I’ve come back to the same school for a second year. Dad goes crazy. Dad loses his job. Dad finds a job somewhere else. We move. That’s been my MO since I was six. I still don’t know a lot of these kids, but at least they look familiar. Less snobby than they looked last Nove